Skylark V1.0 - new Outernet Firmware!

General Othernet Discussions
1

Skylark V1.0 has been released!

Get the VM flasher and instructions from: We Moved!

Discussion and feedback here:

  • News reader, APRS reader, Wikipedia app, and “Whats new” app <–with “auto refresh”
  • Flash filesystem changes: now 8GB storage! magic! Anonymous ftp access
  • Auto clean up: Old weather data, APRS data, Wikipedia, News deleted automatically
  • OTA updates!! Did I say OTA updates? really small OTA updates!!
  • Bugfixes! Lotsa them - Tuner status freeze, config corruption, others.
1 Like
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Post flashing experience/bug reports etc in this thread please. Also make sure you check the 4th post in this thread for any known issue/bugs.

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Features to watch out for:

  • News reader
  • APRS reader (basic)
  1. Wikipedia app
  2. “Whats new” app
  3. All the above apps “auto refresh” if you leave them open
  4. Flash filesystem changes: now 8GB storage! magic!
  5. Anonymous ftp access
  6. Auto clean up: Old weather data, APRS data, Wikipedia, News deleted automatically
  7. OTA updates!!
  8. Did I say OTA updates? really small OTA updates!!
  9. External access API: access tuner status with a simple wget
  10. External access API: access recent aprs messages with a simple wget
  11. Bugfixes! Lotsa them - Tuner status freeze, config corruption, others.
  12. Autoboot on power is back - no need to press the power button
  13. support for “new” CHIP 1.0 shipping from NTC (ones with Toshiba NAND chip - these are 4GB only!)
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If flashing doesn’t work:

  1. You may need to run Virtualbox as root(on linux) or Administrator (on windows).
  2. If you see a “EIP Value” error in the virtualbox VM window, your computer either does not have hardware virtualization support or the support is disabled in BIOS.

Known issues:

  1. Mobile/small screen support is still limited.
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This topic is now a banner. It will appear at the top of every page until it is dismissed by the user.

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Will the old Weather file be removed from the carousel to “make room” for all these other cool things transmitting more frequently? I’m running the Skylark beta right now but I’ll upgrade to this version tonight when I get home from work.

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yes, the Weather.tbz2 will be removed from the carousel. Not immediately though.

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Ok cool. BTW I read the instructions PDF for v1.0 and I didn’t notice anything about running VirtualBox as an Administrator. When flashing the beta on my Windows 10 machine I needed to run it as an Administrator for it to attach the CHIP to the VM. Before that it saw the CHIP under USB Devices but wouldn’t attach it so the guest OS could see it for flashing.

This may be due to me having the CHIP drivers installed already since I’ve owned a CHIP from the original Kickstarter and have done many things with it previously. Just figured I’d mention it in case anyone else has a similar experience with the flash process not working.

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good point. i will add it to the “known issues” post above.

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Just a quick post to confirm successful installation on one of the “new” CHIPs.

Hopefully later today I’ll have time to deal with antenna pointing and verify that it actually WORKS :slight_smile:

2 Likes
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brilliant, good to know!

First confirmed Flash in the post too :smiley: :thumbsup:

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Again, super easy flash and we’re up and running – looking forward to working with the changes once some content begins to flow in! Thx @Abhishek!

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Did a quick eyeball point without trying to optimize. SNR hovering around 5.6, Frame Lock, packets coming in. Hopefully will actually see some whole files soon. So all good from here.

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Flashing without problems and the new OS is running.
When i try to change the wifi settings in hot-spot mode, for example wifi channel, the device is not booting.

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could you tell me what happens? once you click “save and reboot”, after about 3 seconds, the status led should turn off, and then the boot should happen (takes 25-35 seconds) and then the status led should start blinking.

What part is not happening? oh, and make sure the FEL header was removed.

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oh, could you (and everyone who successfully flashes), also include the base OS and Virtualbox version used to flash? That should help narrow down any issues others face.

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I used (successfully) VirtualBox 5.1.12 running on GalliumOS on a Lenovo 100S Chromebook.

If that platform works it should run ANYWHERE.

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The status LED turned off and after a while approx. 30 seconds the satus led went on. But the wireless network is not available.
I Used Win10 64b with Virtualbox 5.1.12.

The new UI not very friendly with mobile devices.

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If you change the channel back to default, does the SSID come back?

Yes, mobile support is limited in the UI. it works on the larger tablets, and better on Android than iOS. But overall, mobile/touch support is a work in progress.

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Flashed without incident :slight_smile:
Vbox 5.1.12
It was a lot slower than last time

Now receiving data a 9db SNR (with my dodgy Helix)