Got the Screen Replicator to Work

I have been trying to figure out what I am doing wrong with the screen replication on the RPi. Then it hit me, I wasn't using the right XWindows display. I was relying on tightvncserver to deliver a desktop on the iPad that was the current command login. That will not work because tightvncserver will always give back a different display/desktop as though you were a different person logging in. What I needed was to specify display :0. Here is the resulting duplicated display on my iPad 2.




Update:  it turns out there is really nothing magical here.  I used x11vnc to be the vnc server primarily because I can do some XWindows kinds of things with it.  The launch was by "x11vnc -display :0" and that set up the vnc server to display the current logged in screen.  Note that the other part of the issue was to set up a wi-fi access point that the iPad could access.  The iPad 2 is running iSSH which is a fairly decent SSH/VNC/RDP client on iOS devices.  Now that the screen replicator is out of the way, I can concentrate on the rest of the 1-port router that I was trying to build.  Additional information on using VNC servers can be found at http://elinux.org/RPi_VNC_Server.

Old Notes:
Over the weekend I worked on the 1-Port Router idea.  I started with some knowns and quickly became bogged down in some details.  I started with implementing the instructions at http://learn.adafruit.com/setting-up-a-raspberry-pi-as-a-wifi-access-point.  That didn't work so well until I realized that I had unplugged the connection to the incoming house router on Saturday because there was an area Verizon service outage.  Once I got that situated the install went without a hitch (I also did not specify the wireless driver in the hostapd instructions).  I was able to use the RPi as a Wi-Fi access port with the connection to the outside via the native ethernet port.  Next up, I wanted to get a separate wireless card to connect to my home network.  My reasoning was to have the ability to re-use the 1-Port Router on the outside, notably at work.  At work is a proxy that we allow guest access to; perfect for making modifications to the RPi during lunch break.  I use this with my iOS devices and it keeps me out of the corporate network and allows me to go pretty much anywhere.  I completely unable to get the new wireless usb adapter to work.  It almost seemed that the driver was not being recognized, however, when I plugged the new wireless usb adapter into the RPi first, it assumed the role of the Wi-Fi access port.  So now I am confused.  How do I get a multi-functioning router to work the way that I want it to?

I also played around with setting up my iPad 2 to be used as a monitor for the RPi.  I have a Logitech wireless keyboard w/usb dongle that I can use for the keyboard and trackpad, but I wanted a separate monitor that would be portable.  I have my iPad 2 with me at work and I thought that would be a perfect choice.  I have an iSSH app that gives me both VNC and RDP access and I was thinking that I could link the iPad2 into the RPi Wi-Fi access port and use a VNC connection from the basis ip address.  However, when the Wi-Fi access port was actually running, and I had installed TightVNCServer I was unable to connect to the RPi at the same screen that was being controlled by the Logitech keyboard.  So back to the drawing board.

Wondering about interface in Thin Client

It occurred to me today that if I want to write code for the AVR processor on the iCreate, I will have to have access to the WinAVR compiler/linker and the USB port from a Windows 7 machine.  I could do this by compiling code in a Windows 7 VM running on my Mac Mini but this would mean that I would still have to plug into the USB port on the Mac Mini to get it to download.  I was wondering if I could come up with an across the lan way of having a remote USB port, i.e., redirecting the USB output to the RPi and then on from the USB Hub to the iCreate Command Module.  Conversely, I would like to be able to plug in something USB to the USB Hub and have it appear remote across the lan.  Need to do some further research about this.

Update: I was able to discover a project on SourceForge called USB over IP (http://usbip.sourceforge.net). This appears to have most of what I am looking for. The problem is that there is no part that is useful for Mac OSX. There was a different project at https://github.com/forensix/libusbip called libusbip. I am not sure if they are reflections of each other or not. What I may end up doing is altering both and combining them to get what I need. One thing is for sure, the cost of hardware devices that do the same thing is above $190 apiece. It would be worth my time to give back to the community.

Notes on RPi Thin Client

I was able to do some testing last evening with the RPi Thin Client software.  I was able to use one of the packages to connect VNC wise to both of the other RPis and to my Mac Mini.  It is important that I am able to connect to the Mac Mini because I intend on using some VMs to do special things; like simulate an RPi and develop new image loads.  This will be a way that I can compile something that would normally take a long time on an RPi, like the OS.

I did note that the VNC connection assumes that you want to use an SSL tunnel (not necessary in my house).  The response on the RPis was pretty good but not fabulous, I assume because of the clock speed on the RPi VNC servers.  I was able to link into my Mac Mini after a while, but only after I changed the depth to 24 bits.  Before that all I got was crashes of the VNC application.

Again what I did not test on this go around was whether the RDP and X Windows connection would work.  I need the RDP for the Windows 7 VM that I can run from my Mac Mini.  I need the X Windows connections for those times that I use the Ubuntu VMs on the Mac Mini.  I might even decide to move the Mac Mini into the downstairs bedroom - nah, bad idea.

Trying to put together a Thin Client

After contemplating the RPi setup that I have, it occurred to me that if I sacrifice one of the three RPis that I own, I could setup a rather nice little Thin Client.  This makes a whole lot of sense because I can use the Thin Client to get into pretty much anything in my home network, including the other RPis.  I took a look at the Raspberry Pi Thin Client project and made a determination that it would supply most of my needs.  It also happens to have a very tiny image that I was able to download.

Well, I downloaded the RPi thin client from Google drive and placed it onto a 2GB SD card last night.  I did not have much of a chance to try it out until this morning before going to work.  I did bump into an obvious problem, I didn't know how to use pretty much any of the tools in the image.  That will be my next challenge.  I know that I need to be able to do RDP, VNC, and probably XWindows.  I would really like to use the Thin Client to do XWindows.  Right now, I was very pleased to see that the system came up without a hitch.  I had reformatted the SD Card from my Mac prior to loading the thin client image.

I can foresee using the Thin Client to be able to access the two remaining RPis, my Mac Mini, any one of several VMs running in the Mac Mini, my work laptop, the home laptop, the WMC computer, and other servers in the house as well as external servers that I am in charge of.  This would be a great way to access these elements.  However, I do see a problem in the meantime because there is no X11 acceleration in the image, but that has been promised.  Cudos to the Thin Client project for the work done thus far.

Thinking of a Thin Client on RPi

It occurs to me that if I have the RPi in the bedroom and my MacMini is in a different room and various other servers are located throughout the house, it might be good to incorporate a Thin Client on the test setup.  This would enable me to get to other boxes in the network and do things without having to get up from the chair (I know, lazy me).  I already have VNC running throughout the house, I just need to incorporate a VNC/RDP client on RPi in order to do this.  It might not be really fast but at least it is cheap to put together.  Need to do some further research.