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This being a report in my continuing saga to deploy a Raspad as a daily driver information prosthetic, it is meet that I preface with my general feelings and observations at this juncture.
The Raspad is a solid bit of kit. The mother-daughter board connexions yet hold fast. Solders feel stolid and not done hastily cold. The plastic shell is certainly not as durable as the aluminium of an iPad. But it isn’t meant to be. Permeability is a virtue in tinkerer context. I already contemplate gluing a 40 pin ribbon cable jack at the provided chassis divot for outside GPIO access, drilling the box for a camera kit, &c.
I’d also like to double the battery bank of the tablet. This mod seems sensible given mission parameters (ham radio text modes in remote areas) and doable given the capaciousness of the shell. If it doesn’t fit inside with other mods, very well, I can 3D print a box extension easily enough.
I find I dearly prefer the wedge shape form factor of Raspad, both for propping on a surface and for holding. The iPhoneification of infotech with shiny, slick metal has done few favours to actual ergonomics. Flat tablets, phones, & PDA’s want to tumble from the grasp. This, even when one wraps them with a rubber or plastic protector. It’s design for design’s sake and bad form. Meanwhile, the Raspad is much more willing to stay put, both on a table or in the hand. Bravo, Sunfoundry!
My continual general review is needful, as I expect the Raspad to stand up to extremes of weather, movement, and dirt in excess of the usual for many years to come. I’ll be watching for stress points this first year. Really, I’m optimistic it can hold up; winter will tell the truth.
I spent an internet day burning two new OSes to SD chip.
First I swallowed my pride of partisanship and gave Gnome Ubuntu a go. This was done with the rational explanation to myself that many adjustments in my UI expectations will be likely. But the standard Ubuntu DE I found so utterly obtuse with contemporary UX fads that I was completely flummoxed within a double hour. It reminded me too much of Windows 10, and I found coaxing it from these bad habits beyond its immediate capacity. Whatever organizational mentality agitates for this ilk of system design I cannot fathom. Gnome 3 / Unity spins me plum doolally.
For what it is worth, vanilla Ubuntu for Raspi does indeed run fine on Raspad.
The error in certain window menubar drop down menus continues. A tap on menu items isn’t recognized as a click but nerfs with a quick flash. I cannot tell yet if this is a GTK or Qt issue, but suspect the former. It does not affect drop down menus in generic X windows; Dillo works jake. It may be instructive that the error accrues in both LXDE and Gnome.
…is that the setup process of Ubuntu requires a usb hard keyboard to complete. There is no soft keyboard deployed during setup. This is a bizarre oversight for a distribution which has proclaimed touchscreen readiness for 10 years. Furthermore, the included softkeyboard must be activated later from the settings programme; it is notably not OnBoard with that softkeyboard’s emphatically superior malleability, but a far more perfunctory and tablet unfriendly widget. But thankfully, once setup, they seem to play well with each other.
I’m sure there are other issues in Gnome, but it rubbed me the wrong way enough that I shall continue to eschew it. UI’s should get out of the way, integrate with user needs and durable habits, not demand users play hopscotch with GUI dev fads.
So on to beloved Ubuntu MATE, which the Raspad literature assured me had been tested on the tablet. I was grateful for this, as MATE is still my favoured DE, despite its heft in memory relative to LXDE and such. I was a Gnome 2 diehard; I dislike impertinent “suggestions” or jumbled corralling from my infotech, but do like an immediately icon heavy UX platform. No beeps or clicks, thanks. Computers should be patiently seen and not heard. Just icons and branching menus.
I must say I am continually pleased by the readiness of the Raspad as a platform to handle all these DEs. The Raspi installer programme handles any distro archive without guff. The extended options to preload administrative info didn’t work with the MATE image, but that is fine. It burnt to chip and setup ran accordingly. On device, the fundamentals of touchscreen work well.
The GTK drop down menu glitch continues under MATE, though notably less often than with RaspiOS’s LXDE. The issue thus persists across three highly varied environments. This suggests to me that it is a readily solvable software side issue as Sunfounder insists. I am hoping to dig up the relevant coven of devs and help solve this.
I usually set up MATE toolbars on the screen sides, and this is even more ergonomic for tablet than for lappy desktop. The ease of adding launchers and widgets in MATE makes quick thumb navigation a gimme for a good UX. This is especially so with the wide borders of the tablet, allowing for a quick GameBoy or Nintendo Switch style operation. Highly recommended for Raspaddies. Ah, the sweet relief of Linux MATE!
Like LXDE, but notably not so in Gnome, one issue is that the point at which a sensed touch generates a click is on the lower edge of the finger, not the middle. That is, to click a button, one must aim a bit higher than with an iPad. This takes some adjustment by the user, but I do not find it unduly difficult if the GUI is adjusted for touch density, if somewhat odd. I’ve noticed a similar difference when using some android devices. Why this should be, I cannot discern. I do prefer the iPad ergonomics in this, very likely more studied and tested.
OnBoard comes ready in Ubuntu MATE for Raspberry Pi, bless the devs. I have been tooling with the xml and svg files of the keyboard layouts. These config files are lucid, easy for the muddled tinkerer to understand or change at whim. A glorious system, OnBoard, and apparently fairly stable.
Frankly I find this OnBoard softkeyboard far superior to that of iOS even when enhanced by Unicode Pro and iRime: far more powerful, malleable, and cosy. I expect to release a few keyboard layouts and themes on smolnet; I shall involve myself with the devs to likewise help accrue more keyboard languages.
My immediate modification is to ensmall the “small” keyboard’s word suggestion IME grid and rearrange the arrow keys. I also deleted the predictive field. Autocorrect and AI learning is needful with softkeyboards. But I dislike syntactically predictive text. It’s a bridge too far for any device to prompt what one’s next word should be.
I’m also making a small numpad keyboard for DOS games.
It will take a tad more tweaking and training. But I am pleasantly supervised to enjoy OnBoard. Enough superlatives cannot be delivered for this doodad.
OnBoard and other accessibility options does not startup with the distro setup, I must note. One must use a USB hardkeyboard to setup Ubuntu MATE. This is an error Ubuntu MATE devs really ought to rectify for numerous reasons, not least being disability accessibility.
Once setup and configured, never fear, OnBoard nicely pops up on boot for password entry, however.
MATE window themes for tablet are obviously an oversight needing quick remedy. The desktop themes have razor thin scroll bars and very tiny window buttons. A few programmes do have view options to widen icon density for touchscreen. Lovely and helpful indeed. I find that removal of window decorations improves things, but would like to have window close, minimize, and enlarge icons set in the menu bars with a better density for touch. Something to DIY.
One oddity occurs with Mozilla programmes: if set to adjust window size when it automatically shows for text entry, OnBoard will sometimes jump up with said Mozilla window to the top of the screen, as if to input for a box below it. Quickly solved, but annoying. I shall perforce file a ticket on that.
I tinkered with Ibus IME in RaspiOS and found it works very well for touchscreen. I didn’t have time to install it to MATE. But project number one next internet day will be to see about Rime and Tegaki. CJKVZ handwriting by tablet is mission critical for me. (It should be deployed as standard in any touchscreen bound OS.) I’d be very surprised if this isn’t a gimme for touchscreen linux deployments. But given the languishing of Tegaki, And how it has never worked for me before, I wager much wrestling and dev hunting will be needed.
At one point on last boot the MATE gave me a system error that OpenGL isn’t happy. No detail was offered, natch. Linux logs are still beyond my easy literacy. But this would account for certain oddities, like the slowness of window dragging, if the softGPU isn’t playing well with Raspi. It hasn’t been a real problem, save that across all OS’s I note graphics programmes are highly variable in their responsiveness. One expects that Gimp be slow on such a device. But I shall follow up on this to see if OpenGL is at issue.
I’ve spent some time with the RaspiOS taste testing a smorgasbørd of calendar programmes. For my use, these programmes must integrate well with the DE notifications feature enough to be manageable by type flags. (I dislike audio alarums save for the necessity of wake-up calls.) An ability to import iCal and web calendars is needful. I’ve narrowed the runners down to Korganizer and Thunderbird. The latter especially has malleable alarums.
For one other necessity I have not unexpectedly found a grating lack. None of these calendars allow the ability to track non-Western dates. I realize this may surprise some in the mainstream Anglosphere, but non-Gregorian calendars are alive and well in millions of communities. I might import one of the many spyware infested and adware ridden Chinese almanac apps for Android once I have Anbox happy. But I’d much rather have a simple, clean, multilingual, FLOSS 通勝 integrated with my calendar programme, perhaps as an addon module in Thunderbird. This I gather will likely need my fumbling DIY input as well, which is just as well.
An honourable mention in the calendar buffet must be the ncurses calendar CalCurse. This calendar is lucid and malleable, a friendly CLI offering which I may later deploy if I can do enough archaeology to see how Crontab might be linked with MATE notifications. I’d enjoy a dual interface of Thunderbird with CalCurse via iCal files.
I had time to give a good dozen map programmes a go. The management of maps in the raw will need a good deal of user upgrade. iPad has spoilt me for maps and gps access. But offline maps are absolutely critical for my needs. This means not merely OSM roadmaps as offered in OsmAnd and such, but topographic/aliquot maps a la Ordnance Survey. On the other hand, I do note that Open Street Maps does now provide several more map variants simpatico to my needs, which several programmes will download and cache offline. I shall be interviewing Linux map apps and map providers directly.
All the distros do well to setup Bluetooth for keyboard and mouse… …except MATE! This I suspect is because MATE uses the execrable Blueman controller, which has given me issues on several machines running not a few distros. I *know* that my keyboard plays well with Raspad; it runs well on RaspiOS and Gnome Ubuntu. But Blueman can’t seem to pair or setup any device I have beyond a shaky tenuity, or else I am not canny enough to make it do so. I shall endeavour next week to exorcise this utility in favour one less finicky.
The service provided by Sunfoundry to enable the accelerometer chip to rotate the screen works spiffing,y in MATE. I also added an obscure programme called Arandr which can rotate the screen manually.
I expected to prefer this. But the Raspad native rotation seems jake to me, not overly sensitive. It is noticeably quicker on the draw under MATE than LXDE, which is nice.
The Python script released for RaspiOS to allow for a right click action when one holds a touch doesn’t install under MATE. I daresay I didn’t expect it to do so. But this is a much needful feature I hope can be fixed for other DE’s with a ticket plead and some minimal tinkering.
Until this is fixed, I’ve been using the OnBoard mouse click keys. It can take a bit of finagling to do. It is far from an optimal solution. But I’m not unduly annoyed by this kludge for the moment. When optimized to my preferences, OnBoard is so ready and nimble, I got used to using it for right clicks after an hour.
I shall look for a MATE panel widget to replace this function of OnBoard, which I may end up preferring to the long-hold touch option anyway.
I am forced to admit that Gnome does immediately shine in two issues for portable touchscreen devices: cursor hiding and power management.
The former feature is fine, though I’m not bothered by a constant mouse cursor at all. The cursor is hidden if the screen is touched and revealed if one shakes a mouse or touchpad. It’s a canny trick to be sure.
The latter issue is far more pressing. I ran Gnome too short a time to judge, but the process management does seem to have the CPU on a tighter lead. Likewise MATE: I ran the Raspad on battery for for a few hours and found it takes more modest sips than RaspiOS. Sunfoundry say the battery bank is 33Wh, three 18650 cells bundled up like sausage, better than iPad. Even though the Raspi 4B CPU doth draw more than iPad, this should be adequate. If I can double that, so much the better. But first I shall see about installing the MATE widget which does so well on my Lappy486 to underclock and cool the chipset. It is terribly convenient to fiddle with such a DE tool when on solar power.
The hardbuttons on Raspad are likewise convenient, especially for us fogeys who remember a pushbutton UX world with forlorn longing. But I find the screen is too bright for me even on lowest settings when indoors or at night. I shall make a go of finding a software or config solution to this, which ought to likewise save much battery life.
My planned epaper screen modification ought to likewise greatly extend life. With the main screen off and a foldout hdmi epaper screen doing for most reading, Raspad should do nicely for books and writing.
I’ve got the preliminary imaginings for setting the Raspberry Pi camera kit into the shell in such a way that it might be easily removed for distance deployment or video chat. I loathe video chat so this is not a personal priority. But there is room in the box. A bit of 3D printing, which I’ve been doing lately, and this should be a handy feature. I do take pics of scenery with my devices, so would fancy the camera in the chassis facing outward.
Likewise, I appreciate the plastic shell for switch friendliness. I shall probably add a hard switch or babby PWM to the CPU fan. Otherwise, the fan might be run off the GPIO rails, for which I wager a software speed controller is out there somewhere.
Raspad is almost ready for prime time right out of the gate, at least for the typical (?) hemidemisemi-techy Linux user. I am very pleasantly surprised, given the grumbling of some internet commenters, who should know better patience where countercultural infotech is concerned. The weak points are all software issues, not hardware. If you are considering a Raspad 3, come in; the water is warm.
Linux devs, should any find this of interest, please take note. Raspad is by all measures the best current option for portable Linux deployment. Pace the Raspi ARM chipset, more energy really ought to be geared toward building for this system and squashing the bugs. We aren’t in an Intel/AMD desktop world anymore. Given the field serviceability of the Raspad, it shows every promise to kick mainstream tablets to the curb amongst tech geeks if these setup issues are settled.
And Raspad fits in a purse, which is a UX must for any portable info prosthetic.
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