Setup MiniX

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Copy Meteohub Runtime Environment on a 8GB microSD card

You find the Meteohub runtime environment to download here. Use the 8GB "Allwinner A10 Mini X" image. Download this software as a compacted RAR archive ("mhminix-vxyz.rar") and decompress it with winrar (on Windows) or unrar (on Linux). Resulting file is about 8 GB in size named like "mhminix-vxyz.img". Next you have to put this file onto a 8 GB microSD card. To use an industrial card like TS8GUSDC10I from Transcend is highly recommended, as it is expected to handle the heavy amount of flash wear fine. Extracted file is not a regular file to copy onto a file system, but a multi-partition disk image. So you need a special tool to transplant it onto the microSD card.

Windows

On Windows you need to download and run a special tool to do the required low-level writing to the microSD card. The tool of choice is "ImageWriter" from SuSE (you find additional information about this tool here). Please download ImageWriter.exe to your Windows PC. It does not need to be installed it is just a small executable to run. Please insert the USB SD card reader with microSD card inserted into your PC wait a few seconds and then start downloaded "ImageWriter.exe". Wait until a dialog like this pops up:

Iw01.png

Please select the inserted USB acrd reader with microSD card from the target drop-down list. Then open the file browser by clicking "Select" button. "*.img" files are not displayed by default so first thing to do is to enter "*.*" as file name. Having done that you will see the file "mhminix-vxyz.img" on the list. Select and open this file. Dialog should now look like this:

Iw02.png

Press "copy" and the image data will be written to microSD card. When operation has finished without error, you are done with this step. Please pull the USB SD card reader from your Windows PC.

Linux

On Linux you use the "dd" command. Please insert the microSD card into a USB SD card reader and plug this into your Linux box and check via "dmesg" what device the microSD card has been mapped to. In the following example it has been mapped to "/dev/sdj" 

# dmesg
...
[5343787.389354] scsi 27:0:0:0: Direct-Access     Generic  USB  SD Reader   1.00 PQ: 0 ANSI: 0 CCS
[5343787.389506] sd 27:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg5 type 0
[5343787.393101] sd 27:0:0:0: [sdj] 15759360 512-byte logical blocks: (8.06 GB/7.51 GiB)
[5343787.393590] sd 27:0:0:0: [sdj] Write Protect is off
[5343787.393593] sd 27:0:0:0: [sdj] Mode Sense: 4b 00 00 08
[5343787.393595] sd 27:0:0:0: [sdj] Assuming drive cache: write through
[5343787.397343] sd 27:0:0:0: [sdj] Assuming drive cache: write through
[5343787.397349]  sdj: sdj1 sdj2 sdj3
[5343787.405303] sd 27:0:0:0: [sdj] Assuming drive cache: write through
[5343787.405306] sd 27:0:0:0: [sdj] Attached SCSI removable disk

We are just looking for "sdj" and are not interested in the partitions recognized on the stick (sdj1, sdj2, sdj3). The print out above tells that "/dev/sdj" is the target device. To make sure that the device ist not mounted by some background processes you should manually unmount all partitions by "umount". In the given example this will be 

umount /dev/sdj1; umount /dev/sdj2; umount /dev/sdj3

When this throws errors about not mounted file systems that is fine. Don't worry. Now it is time to bring the Meteohub image onto the microSD card. In the example above this will be done by 

dd if=mhminix-vxyz.img of=/dev/sdj bs=1M

Please be careful with that command. When you choose the wrong "of=" target (i.e. your system drive) this will be overwritten without further notice and you will have to restore your Linux box! As dd has to transport 8GB of data to the microSD card in small chunks this will take a long time (may be an hour). When finished dd will report number of written blocks. If it reports that not all blocks could be written, something is wrong with your microSD card (may be less than 8GB in size?).
When "dd" has completed without error, this step is finished and you can pull the USB SD card reader from your Linux box.

Start Meteohub

Inital setup can be done as usual via a headless variant where you connect to the Meteohub via WLAN from your desktop PC's browser or directly at the MiniX by having monitor and keyboard/mouse connected to it.

With monitor and keyboard/mouse connected

  1. Take the microSD card from the USB SD card reader and plug the microSD card into the microSD card slot at the front of MiniX. Make sure it slips in correctly (label upside) and locks until pressed again to flip out.
  2. Connect HDMI monitor to the full-size HDMI port at the back and connect a USB keyboard and USB mouse by means of a USB HUB to the left USB port on the front of MiniX (the right USB OTG port cannot be used).
  3. Power on the MiniX by inserting the power plug at the back. LED on front shines red.
  4. Wait until "Fluxbox" window manager starts and selection dialog box pops up, asking you to confirm that you login to localhost with user name "meteohub". Please confirm and Meteohub web admin interface will be displayed on the monitor.
  5. Confirm Meteohub license conditions diplayed to you.
  6. First step to do is to select the type of keyboard you have. Please switch to "Settings" page and use section "Setup Keyboard" to select the one you have. Just use the drop-down dialog, you don't need to press "save".
  7. Next step is to set network credentials on page "Network". Having done that a reboot on page "Maintenance" should be done to check if Meteohub comes up correctly and connects to your network as intended.

Without monitor and keyboard/mouse

  1. MiniX WLAN tries to connect to an access point with SSID "meteohub", talking WPA2 using PSK password "meteohub". When connect is successfull Meteohub will ask your router via DHCP for an IP and can be reached by this IP via your WLAN infrastructure. To get the IP known, please consult DHCP log of your router, where the MiniX request should be logged.
  2. As an alternative you can add a USB LAN connector to Meteohub when booting. Many USB LAN adapters are supported by Meteohub on MiniX. When connected to a LAN, Meteohub also gets it's IP via DHCP from your LAN infrastructure and can be reached by that from your desktop PC's browser.
  3. When you have trouble in getting the IP known, you might try the Windows tool "ipscan" (download here to examine the IP that the router has given Meteohub via DHCP.

Revert to a regular MiniX

Meteohub installation does no harm to your MiniX. All Meteohub operation happens on the microSD card. Put this away and the MiniX is as you have received it from factory.

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