OpenPlotter custom builds for HALPI computers

[mairas]

Hi all,

I have put together automatic GitHub builds for OpenPlotter-HALPI images. OpenPlotter-HALPI is a custom OpenPlotter build that is ready to use with Hat Labs HALPI marine computers - but should work fine with any Raspberry Pi.

Download the xz archive files here: https://github.com/hatlabs/openplotter-halpi/releases

OpenPlotter-HALPI tracks the upstream Raspberry Pi OS and I intend to make updated builds whenever either Raspberry Pi OS or OpenPlotter are updated. (Or at least, when I notice such releases are made...)

For the end user, differences between upstream OpenPlotter and OpenPlotter-HALPI should be minimal. However, the build system has received a thorough overhaul. OpenPlotter's repository structure makes change tracking and collaboration next to impossible, with repository history being muddied with recent git merges and/or rebases. Hence, OpenPlotter-HALPI takes a different approach and pulls the upstream Raspberry Pi OS build files as-is and keeps track of modifications to them. OpenPlotter updates are carried over manually, but the same strategy of implementing changes with diff files and shell scripts still applies.

I would be interested in hearing any feedback and experiences!

[Sailoog]

Glad to see new flavors of OpenPlotter. Feel free to push any changes we can add to the OpenPlotter source in place of yours, specially for access point or N2K management.

There are things that we cannot approve at the moment, for example Wayland as it is not mature enough and important apps in OpenPlotter such as OpenCPN still present many issues.

[mairas]

Like I wrote, the current approach of merging the upstream pi-gen into the openplotter repo makes it impossible to track changes or history, and doesn't work well if there's more than one contributor in the project. Maybe you could consider switching the OpenPlotter build system to the one used by OpenPlotter-HALPI? The HALPI-specific changes are just an additional stage that can be easily omitted.

As for Wayland, I already had trouble getting X11 to work as the preconfigured window system with the latest Raspberry Pi OS release - that's why I made Wayland the default in OpenPlotter-HALPI. It is still possible to switch back using raspi-config. Go figure.

[Sailoog]

what changes do you need to track? pi-gen or openplotter changes?

OpenCPN will not work in OpenGL mode under wayland, specially with heavy charts like Finland. There are also some interface issues. The Raspberry OS main menu does not support scrolling under Wayland and when some submenu is too long, as is the case with OpenPlotter, some applications cannot be opened on 7" monitors. These are just some of the problems with Wayland.

[mairas]

what changes do you need to track? pi-gen or openplotter changes?

Both, in relation to each other. Git repositories normally tell a story: you can follow the commits to see what changes have been made over time and who has done them. This is not possible with openplotter/pi-gen. The fundamental ground rule is that you should never change the history in long-lived branches. Also, if I would make a contribution to the openplotter/pi-gen repo, I would expect that the contribution remains visible in the future.

[quote pid="32215" dateline="1733057914"]
OpenCPN will not work in OpenGL mode under wayland, specially with heavy charts like Finland. There are also some interface issues. The Raspberry OS main menu does not support scrolling under Wayland and when some submenu is too long, as is the case with OpenPlotter, some applications cannot be opened on 7" monitors. These are just some of the problems with Wayland.
[/quote]

Could you elaborate on the OpenGL issues? I don't use OpenCPN regularly myself, and the little I do, it's been on mbtiles maps. I couldn't see any references to "will not work" in OpenCPN issues.

I tried setting the screen resolution to 640x480 to see the menu issues, and I could see it. But going to appearance settings and choosing the small screen defaults did solve that issue. Given that this is an upstream LXDE and Raspberry Pi OS issue and Raspberry Pi folks themselves were willing to make this tradeoff, I wouldn't worry about it much, especially since any delta to upstream is a major cost.

Anyhow, for me, Wayland vs X11 is not a major issue. No matter what you choose to do, it is trivial for me to either minimize the delta with Raspberry Pi OS or to OpenPlotter based on my own judgment.