MXFB Raspberry Final

[Jerry3904]

Glad that worked!

[JayM]

Off the wall question: I have a USB-only printer that works fine but I'm going to need to move it to a different location further away from my computer sometime in the next few months so I can move my computer table closer to the refrigerator where my cat Mr.Butch Sir (the boss of me) has his food and water bowls, as he's getting older and starting to have problems jumping and crossing the gap between the table and ref where the printer and its stand are. I hate to discard a perfectly working and reliable multifunction printer and buy a new wifi one so I was thinking of perhaps getting a Pi, installing MXFB Raspberry on it, and setting up a samba printer share using the Pi's wifi. The question is would you recommend a 1GB RAM Pi 3 for this or a Pi 4 with more RAM and CPU power?

[chrispop99]

Off the wall question: I have a USB-only printer that works fine but I'm going to need to move it to a different location further away from my computer sometime in the next few months so I can move my computer table closer to the refrigerator where my cat Mr.Butch Sir (the boss of me) has his food and water bowls, as he's getting older and starting to have problems jumping and crossing the gap between the table and ref where the printer and its stand are. I hate to discard a perfectly working and reliable multifunction printer and buy a new wifi one so I was thinking of perhaps getting a Pi, installing MXFB Raspberry on it, and setting up a samba printer share using the Pi's wifi. The question is would you recommend a 1GB RAM Pi 3 for this or a Pi 4 with more RAM and CPU power?

The Pi 4 runs pretty hot, and if you intended to put it in a case would either need a fan, or one of the cases that is effectively a heat sink. The Pi 3 would do the job, but slowly. Everything such as networking comes through the USB bus, which is only USB 2 on the Pi 3, as opposed to USB 3 on the Pi 4. It's your decision of course, but in this situation I would use a Pi 4 in a 'heat-sink' case.

As an aside, if a wiring route was available, USB booster cables are available in lengths of up to 50 metres, and would be cheaper than the Pi.

Chris

[JayM]

I tried using a 10 meter repeatered USB extension cable with my printer and the computer intermittently reported that the printer was offline. It may be just a cheap cable but I don't think USB extensions are reliable. Too much voltage drop and data signal attenuation when you get much beyond 2 or 3 meters. I haven't been able to find a stand-alone network print server and I don't have an extra computer that I could dedicate to that job.

I may just get a new wifi printer after all, and either hang onto my existing printer as a spare or rehome it. Ink cartridges for it are getting harder to find anyway. A Pi 4 complete kit with case, fan, etc. would cost about the same here as a new printer anyway. Pi 3 B+ kits are cheaper but often when I need to print a document I need it in a hurry and don't want to be waiting for a Pi 3 to process the print job.

Thanks for the info.

[JayM]

I got a Pi 3 B+ complete starter kit with case. power supply, SD card and heatsinks last month and have been running a headless version of Pi OS on it, PiAware 6 made by FlightAware, that's set up to be a dedicated ADS-B flight tracking feeder. I got tired of having to configure everything from the command-line via SSH so I got another SD card and installed MXFB Pi then reinstalled the flight feeder stuff. I'm using RealVNC to access the Pi from my PC. It sure is nice to see my old friends Thunar, Catfish and Featherpad on the Pi. I really miss MX Package Installer though, not to mention MX Snapshot.

One thing I miss though is having a CPU temperature monitor on the panel like I do on my PC using the Xfce sensor plugin. I like to keep an eye on the processor temperature. Is there any similar thing for Pi OS or MX Fluxbox? I don't want the extra overhead of running gkrellm on the Pi just to monitor the CPU temperature, I want something light weight that always runs in the system tray or somewhere without my having to run an application.

[JayM]

Actually, never mind. I just noticed that gkrellm's preinstalled in MXFB Pi and seems to be lighter-weight than the one in the regular MX repo. I'll just figure out how to auto-start that and use it.

BTW, does anyone know the safe temperature range of a Pi 3's CPU? I thought I read somewhere that it doesn't start throttling until 80C but I'm also thinking of the wee machine's lifespan before failure. Mine has heatsinks on the CPU, Ethernet controller (which I don't use, just wifi) and whatever the square black chip on the bottom is but I also live in the tropics with daily temperatures averaging in the high 20s Celcius and am wondering if I should invest in a different case with a fan. This is my first Pi so I have no prior experience with them, only with desktop and laptop PCs, so I don't know how hot they can safely run or how long they typically last.

[Jerry3904]

Just add it to the startup file (but I don't know offhand how to put it in the systray):

Code: Select all

# start gkrellm
gkrellm &

[JayM]

I think I can just leave gkrellm running on the Pi. I just have to remember to relaunch it after I should ever have to reboot. Having it autorun isn't that big of a deal.

[Jerry3904]

If that line I wrote is in the startup file, you won't have to remember anything.

BTW: you can right-click the top bar and delete any of the elements you don't need to see.

[JayM]

If that line I wrote is in the startup file, you won't have to remember anything.

BTW: you can right-click the top bar and delete any of the elements you don't need to see.

Thanks, I added it to startup and configured gkrellm to only show the CPU temp.