Raspberry Pi 2 Image

[Wadenut]

Put this one in the "DOH!" file.
Since I started working with the Pi a week ago, I've been unable to keep it running more than a couple of hours before it would drop offline; often it would only stay online for a matter of minutes.
I'd Googled the problem and found various solutions - power supply issues, bad solder joints, overheating, bad SD cards, configuring Static vs DHCP address, etc, etc.
I've installed Rob's image on no less than four cards; even installed Raspian from scratch on all of them... same problem. Tried three different power supplies, and even tried back powering the Pi through a USB port with a powered hub. Nothing worked.
Thought I had it yesterday when I configured a Static IP address for the Pi and it ran all day after that. Soon after I left the room though, down she went.
I was about to give up for the time being on this Pi when last night while laying in bed, it dawned on me; and I verified my suspicion this morning.
The Pi; and the USB hub too; were plugged into a handy powerbar that's switched off by a motion sensor at my desk. Thus, the Pi would run happily so long as I was working at the desk, but of course would shut down 30 minutes after I left.

Now, on to installing HS. I do have a question there. No experience with Linux. Can HS be set up to start automatically on boot? If so, I'll need a step by step there. Thx.

[Pete]

Good news Greg!

Personally here do not utilize DHCP for the RPi stuff; never did for automation trinkets. I do assign IPs to my HDHomerun stuff via MAC address. That said I also changed the MAC addresses on my touchscreens such that they are following a numeric order (MAC & IP & port number for management of some 20 + touchscreens). Using Jon's remote utility have them organized in a nice little order of IP, DNS name, MAC and port number. Jon's remote utility does all kinds of stuff with the wintel based touchscreens these days....

As Rob states the image is just an image of a working debian RPi linux wheezy configuration.

That is what provides the substrate / working RPi Debian Wheezy Linux base with Mono for Homeseer.

It will provide a nice teaching tool relating to running the base OS.

Homeseer 3 for Linux is just a directory with stuff you run.

Personally here keep my Homeseer 3 in a directory like in the ZEE. This is very similiar to my approach in Wintel of always keeping the same name and directory infrastructure for running Homeseer.

/usr/local/HomeSeer

Its easy to autostart HS3.

Rather than using the command line via SSH you can install WinSCP and browse the directory, text files and edit these via SSH (windows explorer like application).

You can find WinSCP here.

A nice (been pushing this since day 1 of the Zee) application is called Webmin.

Follow these steps to install Webmin (in posted order below)

1 - wget hxxp://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin_1.740_all.deb
2 - apt-get install perl libnet-ssleay-perl openssl libauthen-pam-perl libpam-runtime libio-pty-perl apt-show-versions python
3 - dpkg --install webmin_1.740_all.deb
4 - webmin will be at your IP:10000 - log in with your sudo name and password

For creating an autostart for Homeseer 3 go to Webmin / boot up and shut down / create a new upstart service.

Here is mine for Homeseer 3 which works fine. Note that its not fancy rather basic and functional. I could tweak it some more.

# Homeseer3
#
# Automation
description "Automation"
start on runlevel [2345]
stop on runlevel [!2345]
expect fork
exec sh /usr/local/HomeSeer/autostart_hs

Relating to Homeseer 3 for Linux all you have to do is download it and ungz it to the proper directory. It is documented on the forum...

1 - we get homeseer3 file
2 - untar homeseer 3 file
3 - check rights of the directory (do an en masse check)
4 - test it by running the script in the SSH session ./go

Watch it run in SSH console. Concurrently go to the browser of choice and configure HS3 to your liking, register it and you are good to go.

Note you can start with an old image of the entire HS3 directory and update it afterwards.

one of them is here I think....homeseer.com/pub/hs3_linux_3_0_0_149.tar.gz

next per Rich's instruction is to do a tar xvf filename of the file you downloaded. It will automatically create an HomeSeer directory and subdirectories.

check the rights using WinSCP (do the whole thing while you are at it).

then just run it and watch your console - do not stop it

1 - cd HomeSeer
2 - ./go
3 - use any browser then and go to IP of box and you will see Homeseer 3 running - do your Homeseer stuff adjustment/tweaking with the GUI.

The directory can be anywhere you want. Personally here keep it at /usr/local/HomeSeer.

Using WinSCP you can shut down hs3 and manually copy over the HomeSeer directory to a NAS or Wintel PC for testing purposes backup. Later on as you learn a bit more you can create a Cron job to automate the backup stuff over to say a NAS box or just another USB stick plugged in to the RPi.

Relating to updating HS3 in Linux; easy peasy as Rich provided a nice little script you run manually in the Homeseer subdirectory. I personally shut down HS3 when updating it; that is me and my recommendation.

[Wadenut]

At this point, I have no intention of using HS3 on the Pi for anything except perhaps testing some of my scripts under Linux, particularly Maximum Uptime. I want to see for myself which, if any, issues might turn up.
Autostarting HS would simply save me a few trips up and down the stairs as I do most of my work on a laptop away from the desk.

[Pete]

Personally (and this is my opinion); it is better/faster to manually start Homeseer 3 in a console window after your RPi has booted for testing purposes.

Once you have all of the stuff installed in the RPi relating to remoting to the device; you can install the RPi anywhere on your network. It doesn't have to be anywhere specific. That and you can also boot up Ubuntu 14.04 (32 or 64 bit) on any USB stick these days. You can also save your Linux boot up configurations and whatever on the USB stick such that it can float around the house. Relating to HSTouch / Designer here I moved it to a Wintel server remote session (or virtually) such that I can also run it from any pc in the house via wintel or linux. It was a PITA to keep it on my desktop in my home office. (IE: with multiple monitors you can run multiple OS's / remote sessions connected to multiple devices on your network). IE: SSH in one window, browser in another window, RDP (to Linux or Wintel or both), firewall in vivo console watching, in another window type of stuff - multitasking sort of...

Here putting one RPi2 in my attic (which I never go to) and powering it via a POE connection to the network. That is me though. I never did connect the RPi to a video monitor.

What is nice about the SD card is that you can also remove it and look at the files on it via a Linux OS anywhere tweaking it as you see fit.

You get a nice granular view of any errors running and the RPi starts faster for you.

[Bob_Linux_User]

I was about to give up for the time being on this Pi when last night while laying in bed, it dawned on me; and I verified my suspicion this morning.
The Pi; and the USB hub too; were plugged into a handy powerbar that's switched off by a motion sensor at my desk. Thus, the Pi would run happily so long as I was working at the desk, but of course would shut down 30 minutes after I left.

Wadenut,

I had to laugh when I read the above post. I had a similar situation with a device on my HS system. I could not figure out why it kept going offline when I left home or went to bed at night. DUH, HS was turning the outlet off. Glad I am not the only one.

Bob

[rmasonjr]

@wadenut and @bob - I'm sure we've all been there at some point

Sent from my SCH-R970X using Tapatalk

[Blade]

I am going to setup my Pi2 Model B shortly with HS3.

Which image should I be using for it? Is there an up to date image somewhere?

Also, What zwave interface would you recommend to just run a zwave thermostat and a few zwave appliance and lamp modules. I am planning to use it in my condo so I only need to automate a few things

[Pete]

Here I updated to the RPi with two images and both worked fine.

1 - Original Zee RPi image updated (Updated OS) - it was plugnplay to RPi2 - note that I updated the image once running on the RPi2
2 - Rob's posted RPi2 image (there are two - original and mini version)

I would look at using Z-Wave + either with the Z-Net interface or whatever if you are primarily using Z-Wave for everything. They both work fine out of the box with Homeseer 3 Pro.

You want to utilize Z-Wave + / newest Homeseer 3 Z-Wave + drivers / plugin.

Here my update to the RPi2 included a newer faster microSD card from Samsung. Older SD cards here were all Sandisk. I originally purchased the Samsung SD card for the Pipo X 7 box. It is really fast.

Currently it's a 32gb microSD card and its too big and will be settling on a 16Gb microSD card. (IE: here started with a 4Gb SD card, then 8Gb then 16 Gb).

You really want something that is easy to back up. 8Gb is the easiest and should be fine with HS3Pro. I like to play such that I personally use 16Gb today.

The first original RPi Zee image though will not work on an RPi2 unless you update it on an RPi with most current RPi OS.

Rob's image is here.

I made a smaller image here.

Note that my smaller image was for a smaller SD card cuz the downloaded img image is actually larger than Rob's which didn't make sense to me.

[Blade]

Thanks Pete

[Blade]

Would the Aeon Labs Aeotec DSA02203-ZWUS Z-Stick-S2 Z-Wave USB Interface work for my zwave needs with the Pi2?

The condo is only 950 square feet so not too big and only one floor

[Pete]

No. The Aeon stick posted doesn't appear to be a Z-Wave + device.

Look here for this and here and here.

[Blade]

$149 for HomeSeer Z-NET Remote Z-Wave Interface is a little steep to just control a few things

I was hoping there was something cheaper that I could plugin into the USB on the Pi2.

[rmasonjr]

Bob, I have a ztroller with a tu-s9 USB to serial. PM me if you're interested. There's a pic over in the for sale forum.

Sent from my SCH-R970X using Tapatalk

[Blade]

I just downloaded Robs image and I loaded it onto my Sandisk 16GB. I put it into the PI2 and it does not seem to load up. No idea why

I formatted the card with SDFormatter first.

Any ideas?

[Blade]

I reloaded it again and it seems to be working now.
That is enough for one night