1 (edited by tismey 2012-04-23 12:21:58)

Topic: Chumby Classic freedom thread

Hi everyone,

I'm, starting a thread (as requested by servalan here) to discuss how to prolong the life of a Chumby Classic if the worst happens and the whole service goes dark in the summer.

My understanding of the various awesome efforts being made in the community, is as follows. Can someone correct me if I'm wildly incorrect?

Zurk has published modified firmware for the Chumby One and The Chumby 8. This can theoretically be made to work with the Chumby Classic if you do some fiddling. (edited to remove erroneous conclusion about this firmware being unable to connect to network/stream audio etc. no strike thru option available on the boards apparently)

Servalan has posted a way of making the Chumby Classic boot into online mode, which circumvents the need for Chumby's servers to be there. I'm not entirely clear what aspects of the Chumby functionality this is missing (if any).

I'm not hugely familiar with the inner workings of my Chumby, so if anyone could help me out on this, it'd be appreciated.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

tismey wrote:

Servalan has posted a way of making the Chumby Classic boot into online mode, which circumvents the need for Chumby's servers to be there. I'm not entirely clear what aspects of the Chumby functionality this is missing (if any).

Nothing missing that I use. wink So alarm clock, the basic widgets, mp3 streams & files, ssh server for easy copying of mp3 files.

If you have any questions, cooee.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

servalan wrote:

basic widgets,

What are you defining as Basic here? Ideally I'd like to still be able to use the Flickr widget for pulling photos down to my Chumby.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

actually mine is completely offline only from chumby.com. it can pull in network data if available and stream as required.
ironically, all the offline firmwares started from the same source -- christians original for the chumby classic. we have two forks of that original -- mine and servalan. mine got resplit after the first few versions for the c1 and c8. along the way mine became incompatible from the classic for some reason.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

I think the term Offline is a bit confusing for your project Zurk. I do not know what phrasing would make it clearer..something like Decentralized, Unchained, Server Agnostic...but when I hear Offline I think of something with no net connection.  Hate to pick nits, it is a great project, but just for the sake of clarity it might help to bat around a few alternative phrases to replace Offline.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

zurk wrote:

actually mine is completely offline only from chumby.com. it can pull in network data if available and stream as required.

Right, good to know. I wasn't sure my reading of the various threads on that point was correct. I'll amend the top post.

Would running either of the amended firmwares affect the Chumby's ability to function as an AirPlay server, as per http://forum.chumby.com/viewtopic.php?id=6470 ?

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

tismey wrote:

What are you defining as Basic here? Ideally I'd like to still be able to use the Flickr widget for pulling photos down to my Chumby.

If you read that linked post you'll see: Internode Service Outages (my ISP), Radio Paradise Now Playing (A radio station my ISP re-streams without impacting my d/l quota), 24 hour all-in-one-clock & a now playing widget.

There are instructions in the post on how to find your widgets on the chumby classic & copy them into the 'Chumby Unshackled' env. If you need a hand with that I can help.

As far as I know 'Chumby Unshackled' doesn't rely on the chumby servers - it worked fine during the last server outage. However it just uses the chumby bog standard firmware. If there is a list of dependencies in the firmware, Zurk - please post them.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

i took a peek at it. theres a ton of problems there. i dont have a list of dependencies unfortunately.
you need to install tomatousb on your router and enable website logging. then put the list of *.chumby.com hosts in your hosts file and block them.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

zurk wrote:

you need to install tomatousb on your router and enable website logging. then put the list of *.chumby.com hosts in your hosts file and block them.

My router doesn't allow that. I already have:

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost chumby.com www.chumby.com xml.chumby.com update.chumby.com

in the hosts file on the chumby. What others do you have? Didn't you keep any of the debugging when you were developing the offline firmware?

10 (edited by zurk 2012-04-23 22:51:00)

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

ya thats not even getting started. lol.
heres a more comprehensive list :
127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost www.yantheriault.com ssm.internet.sony.tv chumby.com www.chumby.com xml.chumby.com content.chumby.com update.chumby.com s3movies.chumby.com
ping.chumby.com files.chumby.com music.chumby.com time.chumby.com tuner.pandora.com proxy.chumby.com pandora.chumby.com

11 (edited by servalan 2012-04-23 23:05:09)

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

Perhaps Duane can help us out with a definitive list of chumby hosts which chumbies call home to.

In Oz. we never had access to Pandora & the french streaming/Sony TV sites are prob. red herrings as well.

12 (edited by zurk 2012-04-24 08:42:14)

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

really ? then you should have no problems putting it in your chumby hosts file and booting up.
that on board GPS chip which tells a chumby its in Oz must sure come in handy down under.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

If you read that linked post you'll see: Internode Service Outages (my ISP), Radio Paradise Now Playing (A radio station my ISP re-streams without impacting my d/l quota), 24 hour all-in-one-clock & a now playing widget.

OK, thanks. So you didn't mean "basic" as in "not advanced", which was kind of what I was getting at.

I'll check it out and give you a shout if I have any questions. Thanks for your help.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

I've beem working on getting a Classic runnign with zurk's image and have had partial success.

I merged files from my /psp directory into the image. When I plugged it in it booted and I can see his apps.

Unfortunatly, I haven't been able to get the network connected.

At least there is some hope of getting this working.

15 (edited by zurk 2012-04-24 20:01:44)

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

bob ( or anyone with a chumby classic ) try : http://sourceforge.net/projects/zurk/fi … p/download

i patched it blindly since i dont have a classic. it might work. it might not. please let me know if it does.

also anyone with a classic if you can put a zip file of your online chumby classic /psp directory up somewhere that would be great.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

I just ordered two 3.5" infocasts today before discovering this site and reading about the recent company developments. I'm so sorry to hear about this, these little devices appear to be incredible and have so much potential in the "maker" community.

Now bear in mind I'm still reading through the wealth of information on this site so I'm still trying to figure out how the infocast and chumby differ but will my infocast be able to take advantage of the efforts of this thread or is it going to require its own "freedom" thread so to speak?

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

jphphotography wrote:

I just ordered two 3.5" infocasts today before discovering this site and reading about the recent company developments. I'm so sorry to hear about this, these little devices appear to be incredible and have so much potential in the "maker" community.

Now bear in mind I'm still reading through the wealth of information on this site so I'm still trying to figure out how the infocast and chumby differ but will my infocast be able to take advantage of the efforts of this thread or is it going to require its own "freedom" thread so to speak?

For most development purposes, the Infocast and Chumby devices are just about identical; there's the obvious visual differences (physical body shape, insignia-branded screens), but beyond that the hardware is just about the same... I do believe it's possible to flash an infocast with its equivalent Chumby's firmware (i.e. C1->I3.5, C8->I8).  Zurk may be able to provide more information on this.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

Thanks Doktor, as I said I've been trying to read as much of the forum as I can here and realized that two posts down was Zurk's 3.5" offline mode firmware so that bodes well for my situation. The question is by the time I get it will I be able to deactivate it and create my own profile etc. Without ever actually seeing one its hard to pull some of the "basics" out of forum posts.

Anyway I don't mean to hijack this thread so carry on smile

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

zurk wrote:

also anyone with a classic if you can put a zip file of your online chumby classic /psp directory up somewhere that would be great.

http://www.users.on.net/~servalan/psp.zip

url_streams, music_order are modified - have no idea what the originals were - don't judge a girl's musical tastes too harshly wink

I'll take a stab at running the zurk firmware tomorrow. I've managed to convince my wireless network card to run wireshark, so I'll capture some traces of the unshackled chumby goo I've assembled booting & running to see any remaining *.chumby.com dependencies.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

My network problem was caused by the hard-coded address in the debugchumby file. I just removed both ifconfig lines and the wifi connects.

How do I get rid of the time and date at the bottom of the screen?

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

bob : can you test this firmware out and see if it connects automatically ?
http://sourceforge.net/projects/zurk/fi … p/download
delete the file clockoverlay.xml in /psp to get rid off the time and date.

Re: Chumby Classic freedom thread

zurk,

I tried your image and it looks good. Booted normally, ran through setup and viewed the widgets.

Good stuff :-)