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[petera]

@mike  I have to say I really admire your tenacity in trying to get this working.  I'm sure I would have given up much earlier in the process.  Now that you're in the process of preparing an SD card with Raspbian Stretch Desktop, following the link in posts #142 or #181 should get you there.  I used the information from the link in #142 and was up and running in minutes. Good luck!

Its the only way to get your head around Linux. Not everyone has the time to spare getting under the hood and just want a quick fix. Assuming that you're learning from the try and fail and try again process it's well worth the effort.

The difficulty here is knowing that all the hardware is in good working order. Once that's confirmed you can get stuck into the system software. Yes the GUI can put the novice user at ease and help greatly with troubleshooting but the CLI really is the strength of Linux.

The important thing to note is that you can easily break the system with a few badly chosen commands. In a case like this it is likely that you will need to reinstall the system software and start again unless you're a power user.

Understanding the file structure, the folder structure, ownership and permissions takes a lot of trial and error out of your efforts. I will say that out of all the Linux distributions out in the wild, Raspbian is designed around the novice and the learner.

It's also important to note that with ongoing development, the Raspberry Pi and Raspbian is an evolving beast. What worked last year may not work this year so be mindful of this when you are searching for solutions.

[mike]

@mike  I have to say I really admire your tenacity in trying to get this working.  I'm sure I would have given up much earlier in the process.  Now that you're in the process of preparing an SD card with Raspbian Stretch Desktop, following the link in posts #142 or #181 should get you there.  I used the information from the link in #142 and was up and running in minutes. Good luck!

Thanks for the tip!  Will do!

[mike]

Well said Petera.  If I had not had this open heart surgery, I probably would not have had all this free time to experiment;  so I can look at that event in a more positive light.  Maybe.  Nah, never mind.  Haha.

Luckily in my case I KNOW 100% my hardware is good since I have a SD card that DOES go to my wifi.

Being an engineer, having spent 30+ years playing detective finding software and hardware problems for my customers, being sent out as last resort by manufacturing companies to solve these issues all others tried and failed to, identifying software bugs, knowing the only way to solve these issues is TO CHANGE ONLY ONE THING AT A TIME, ya, I feel comfortable doing this.  If I ever fudged up a system file I certainly would not leave it so and continue on.

I am beginning to conclude there is a very slight syntax change needed in the wpa_supplicant.conf file that has not been identified yet:  remember, having to add the 'country=US' snuck in here with few clearly stating it is now a requirement.

Knowing now that interfaces is where the wifi is actually configured is an important step to learn.  It may lead me to being able to ignore this wpa_supplicant.conf intermediate step.  I know my openhabian did NOT require a wpa_supplicant.conf file - they handled wifi via a section in their own openhad.conf file - that is where I put my SSID/PW and THEY used it as required to turn on wifi and gain access...

[mike]

So I made a new full stretch using etcher last night on an 8gb card. 

Plugged it in @ 10:06am this morning.  It:
- booted
- auto logged in with user: pi
- asked me to set location
- found all 3 of my wifi networks
- I picked my regular network, signed in and it took immediately

@ 10:12 it is complete, installed, and off downloading a zillion updates.  It is now 10:28 and it is 1/3 of the way thru updates.

This just confirms to me the newest pi zero W hardware is incompatible with the syntax offered all over the net for wpa_supplicant.conf file.  I am not going to look back.

Tuicemen,  you once said you install full desktop version and had issues with HG;  replacing it with stretch lite solved those issue IIRC...  That is not an option for me as I cannot make a stretch lite work.  More recently I believe you also said one can install using this desktop then tell it on reboot to erase the desktop?  Ie., make itself into a lite version?  Did I understand that correctly?

Or would  you guys recommend staying with the desktop version?  I am going to be installing Mochad and then Domoticz...

Again, big thank you to all of you who helped me thru my 500 hours of trials and tribulations to get to this point!

[petera]

So I made a new full stretch using etcher last night on an 8gb card. 

Plugged it in @ 10:06am this morning.  It:
- booted
- auto logged in with user: pi
- asked me to set location
- found all 3 of my wifi networks
- I picked my regular network, signed in and it took immediately

@ 10:12 it is complete, installed, and off downloading a zillion updates.  It is now 10:28 and it is 1/3 of the way thru updates.

This just confirms to me the newest pi zero W hardware is incompatible with the syntax offered all over the net for wpa_supplicant.conf file.  I am not going to look back.

Tuicemen,  you once said you install full desktop version and had issues with HG;  replacing it with stretch lite solved those issue IIRC...  That is not an option for me as I cannot make a stretch lite work.  More recently I believe you also said one can install using this desktop then tell it on reboot to erase the desktop?  Ie., make itself into a lite version?  Did I understand that correctly?

Or would  you guys recommend staying with the desktop version?  I am going to be installing Mochad and then Domoticz...

Again, big thank you to all of you who helped me thru my 500 hours of trials and tribulations to get to this point!

Hallelujah. You've finally landed. It was like the Rover Mission to Mars but you got there.

Watch your health though. As you clearly know troubleshooting can be very stressful so sit back for a bit and plan your next move. Make sure you image that working version before you install anything further (you know that of course  )

At the terminal type sudo raspi-config and select the option to disable the Desktop. It frees up valuable resources but is still available if you need it.You could of course uninstall the X System but I wouldn't mess about with that at the moment.

Great news all round now enjoy the ride that's Raspberry Pi Zero W

[Tuicemen]

I actual had issues with the lite version. Installing the full desktop fixed the issues I had. As petera stated disable the desktop from the terminal raspi-config will speed things up with the Zero W. However wait till you have your  X10 programs setup.it will be slower but if you run into problems it will be easier to find things.

[brobin]

So I made a new full stretch using etcher last night on an 8gb card. 

Plugged it in @ 10:06am this morning.  It:
- booted
- auto logged in with user: pi
- asked me to set location
- found all 3 of my wifi networks
- I picked my regular network, signed in and it took immediately

@ 10:12 it is complete, installed, and off downloading a zillion updates.  It is now 10:28 and it is 1/3 of the way thru updates.

Outstanding! Sometimes the simplest solution is best!

[petera]

Got to get some more Raspbians on board to explore the joys of X10 with the Raspberry Pi. While this was a marathon install it was not typical and with the everything in place a typical install shouldn't take more than two hours from start to finish.

[Tuicemen]

New boards and or new OS lite versions can as we seen in this example cause unforeseen issues.
I always go with the full installs then cut back rather then a minimal then add.
Spending days  or weeks to get a software platform running only to see it isn't for you is  not my cup of tea.
If the software looks like it is something suitable I'll then spend time trying a lite version if I think it will help.
With a Zero or older PI board running the lite version is a benifit but you can strip out things not needed from the full GUI version.
Usually just disabling the GUI is enough but you can remove other packages as well.

Mike may like Domoticz it certainly has lots of options. However since mike already had experiance with HG I would have went that route first on the PI. Running these software options on Windows verses a PI are totaly different. Many Windows issues are none existant in the linux versions. They may look the same but they don't always perform the same.

[mike]

Tuicemen I have not installed any x10 on this yet.  left it last night making a image as it is now.  Some of the updates failed during its couple hours doing that.  One probably was the web browser as it does not work at all.

Just for a quick thing I tried sudo raspi-config and used its update button;  t ground a while then reports failure also.

So going to regroup today and see if I can update everything and have a good card to image.

THEN I will install mochad and Domoticz to try.   Having a good image, I plan to make another card and try the HG since it seems there is the original guy back doing a few things. 

[Tuicemen]

You have a few SD cards now so you'll be able to experiment with different options very easily with a good image on each.
I look forward to reading which platform you find works best for your setup.

[petera]

Tuicemen I have not installed any x10 on this yet.  left it last night making a image as it is now.  Some of the updates failed during its couple hours doing that.  One probably was the web browser as it does not work at all.

Just for a quick thing I tried sudo raspi-config and used its update button;  t ground a while then reports failure also.

So going to regroup today and see if I can update everything and have a good card to image.

THEN I will install mochad and Domoticz to try.   Having a good image, I plan to make another card and try the HG since it seems there is the original guy back doing a few things.

The main thing is you have a vanilla Raspbian install imaged so you can experiment to your hearts content and always reimage.

On many occasions package repositories can be down for maintenance purposes hence the failed to update message. Regularly run the sudo apt-get update to ensure your repositories are up to date before you run the sudo apt-get upgrade.

In rare cases you may have to add a repository like Mono when the package version drops behind the project version. Again packages can be withheld for instability reasons and will also show up as failed.

Finally, from what I can gather your Internet connection is quite slow and some of these packages are quit large. If your download is labouring the server hosting the package may well disconnect you. Personally I am running off 360mb/s so it's not noticeable for me.

Just a few things to be mindful of. Most of the failed errors can be easily googled and resolved.

The Chromium web browser is usually fairly reliable. If you're having problems with it use Midori. Not as feature rich but a lot faster.

[Tuicemen]

I have a slow connection as well at my off grid place. I usually do the big upgrades at night while sleeping 

[mike]

I figured it was my slow connection (10mb/s) not untypical with this crappy oversold crowded frontier DSL.

Anyway, image completed last night so plugged card back into pi;   I like the 10 lines listed - lots of PANICfailed and can't sync stuff.  Obviously NFG.

Tried it 3 boots;  same each time.  making a copy of the image on another sd card now...


sheesh

[Brian H]

I am on a Frontier DSL that was dumped {SOLD} by AT&T here in CT.
I am 3mb/s down and 0.512mb/s up.

If I didn't have a grandfathered Comcast TV only Local Basic plan and getting my HD DTA units free and giving them an excuse to start charging for the interfaces. I would be on a Comcast internet plan myself.