PERFECT FEEDBACK
Thanks for that. At a bar at the moment, but will go through the list soon. First impression is that most of it are “nice to haves”. So very good, as no fundamental errors occured.
Get back to you with a full review a bit later.
Thx again.
Have one in celebration of a job well done! 
Alrighty then, let me go throught the different points and comment on them.
Good
Perfect
Right, not sure why you seen the “Safe to turn off” screen as that screen is being pushed to the framebuffer via systemd within the “halt.target” and “poweroff.target” runlevels. So for some reason it did a quick reboot. Perhaps the resizing of the OS over the whole SD card failed in some way. If you have the SD card still at hand, perhaps you can validate this by checking if all space has been utilized.
Hmm, yes, see that now. Will update the screen. Made that screen way before the wifi setup system.
5a) I also saw a few funny SSID’s. I am just using the “iw” command to show all networks and then use text line magic to search for all the SSID’s. See code below;
def scan_wifi_networks():
iwlist_raw = subprocess.Popen([‘iw’, ‘dev’, ‘ap0’, ‘scan’, ‘ap-force’], stdout=subprocess.PIPE)
ap_list, err = iwlist_raw.communicate()
ap_array = []
for line in ap_list.decode('utf-8').rsplit('\n'):
if 'SSID' in line:
ap_ssid = line[7:]
if ap_ssid != '':
ap_array.append(ap_ssid)
return ap_array
5b)Perhaps I need to dig in a bit deeper and check for type of network as well. About the 5G networks not being shown. At my test bench I only have 2.4G so stupidly didn’t look further. Will have a look, but think I already know what the problem is. I have no country specified within the default wpa_supplicant files. I believe 5G needs to know the country becaquse of the channel / power settings of the wifi chip. Will look at it.
6) Thanks, indeed a simple thing that helps preventing typo’s. I have on the list (way at the bottom though) to check the crendentials before the reboot, but for now that is a easy compromise.
7) Yeah, perhaps the wording should be changed a bit. I thing I will change it to “Safe to reboot / Rebootig now”. While at it, thik I will change the poweroff screen to “Safe to poweroff / Powering off”. It depend a bit on the hardware if it can actually really reboot/poweroff the system. But as we are still only looking at the RPi’s it is not yet a valid point. (I know some Amlogic boards, can’t really power off)
8) Sure, that is already on the nice to have list. At the moment, I just implemented a very, VERY simple splash approach utilizing systemd. At some point I will change this to something more advaced, but still not as advanced as plymounth. Will probably end up with psplash or something.
9) Indeed, on the list but awaiting the way forward from the Mycroft Dev team in combination of the GUI. At the moment there are multiple ging going on. They write the WIFI code raw to the framebuffer. The pairing code is handled by a Skill, but there is still an open ongoing discussion about enclosures/code. I am trying to use as much as possible from the Mycroft Dev team as possible. This makes is look the same, avoids confusion. However the visual part of Mycroft is still a bit early bird.
10) Great idea. For the rest, see point 9. But perhaps we should communicate this one to the Dev team as well for their Mark-2 development.
11) Good.
12) Doh! Never thought about that. Gave it some thoughts at the bar 
Could be easily solved by adding the last bits of the MAC address to the hostname. Again systemd will help us out and makes it robust.
[Unit]
Description=Set hostname to MycroftOS-[MAC]
Before=systemd-networkd.service
Before=avahi-daemon.service
[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/bin/sh -c "hostnamectl set-hostname MycroftOS-`sed 's/://g' /sys/class/net/eth0/address | tail -c 7`"
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Hmmm, thought the mycroft/mycroft combo was clear. Anyhow, on the list is to have the user force a password if the enable the SSH at the settings page. Then the underlying Skill/Enclosure code will initiate as passwd command before starting the SSH daemon. Open network protocols with default credentials are a no go if you ask me. Anyhow, will look at it when I make SSH disabled by default.
Nice
Indeed, I need to have a look at MSM code and see what package managers it is looking for. Than either need to patch the code or mimic an empty package manager. Buildroot does not have a package manager. Need to give this some thoughts to find the right decision.
That is done intentionally. Still working on the mycroftos enclosure skill. Only added the skill in this release for the Framebuffer visuals. When the whole Skill is done, I will make it install properly so it can be updated etc. For the volume skill, I included a patched version where I added “MycroftOS” to the ALSA_PLATFORMS array. This together with the pushing e erything from ALSO to pulse give me a quick fix for handling the volume. The mycrofos-enclosure skill it the place where I will and need to integarte the PulseAudio volume control code. This should inlcude; Increase/Decrease volume, muting, but also switching sinks, perhapos seperate sink volume control, seperate sink muting. This figuring that stuff out in my head. Most likely also need some changes to CPS or Audio service. All audio is forced into pulseaudio and as this is a embedded system only used for mycroft, we should allow Mycroft to control all the sinks of pulseaudio. So when we start playing something via spotify connect on the device, we should be able to say “Hey MYcroft, stop” and it should just stopp all playback, including the ones that aren’t even initiated by Mycroft itself.
Yeah, the snapcast and mpd needs to be added to the settings page. Not 100% sure how though…
Snapcast client is already installed. Just enable it via the settings page and it will be started and started at boot because I use systemd for it.
[Unit]
Description=Snapcast client
Documentation=man:snapclient(1)
Wants=avahi-daemon.service
After=network.target time-sync.target sound.target avahi-daemon.service
[Service]
EnvironmentFile=-/etc/snapcast/snapclient
ExecStart=/usr/bin/snapclient $SNAPCLIENT_OPTS
StandardOutput=null
Restart=on-failure
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
I will investigate and think I know what it is. Indeed overheating and downthrotling. I have set the CPU govenor to performance. Precise is asking quite a lot of the RPI3, so the CPU goes up and down. I could have changed the on-demand threshold, but in combination with precise that is about the same as going ful lspeed all the time anyway. BUT, we might not need this for the RPI4 as it is a bit faster. Will see if I can make it automaticall; performance for rpi3, on-demand for rpi4.
Agree, see 19.
Not sure, need to read into it. Will get back to this.
In the end; YES. At the moment NO, not without flashing again. I have OTA firmware upgrade system on the list. Either RAUC (what HassOS uses) or SWupdate. Both systems can be use to upgrade the system via USB, a webinterface or could poll a remote server for updates. All user data will be moved to /opt so it will survive upgrades. Anyhow, will only startdeveloping this when I reach some sort of “final” first release as things keeps changing a a regular basis at the moment. But already doing my homework for it
Once again, perfect feedback. You really approached it with a (dummy) kind of consumer eye. This type of reports, makes something going from 90% done to 100% That last 10% are always the most difficult in a project.
Thanks again!
It has been a while since I was able to really work on the project, but as Corona hits us all and we have to work from home, I can multitask a bit in between the daytime job task.
Gathered all my different (sticky) notes into a proper task list again. For the people that are interested or are or want to be involved, see below (Let me know if I missed something)
MycroftOS - Version 0.1.0 - alpha 8
ToDo:
MycroftOS - Version 0.1.0 - beta 1
ToDo:
MycroftOS - Version 1.0.0 - alpha 1
ToDo:
Quick double post to let you know, the above list has been updated with more stuff from saved bookmarks, notes, investigations.
I know a long list and it keeps getting longer. But it kind of show cases how I see an end-consumer type of Mycroft device
Looking forward to doing some more testing, let me know if you need anything specific tested, I may have some time on my hands in the next week or so.
We all have nowadays🤦♂️
But yeah, thanks, will definitaly ping you when I have something to test for you.
Add me to willing test subjects. Eager to get Squeezelite and Mycroft running on a RasPi… 
No problem!
Do you have Rpi3 or Rpi4? No ETA about the next test version though. In progress of updating the underlying Buildroot, kernel and all drivers / firmwares. All ok except the wife (again🤦♂️)
Squeezelite is already included and muting / ducking does work through an alsa/pulse force trick, but want proper pulse volume control. That way I am prepared to adjust the volumes of all seperate playback. Lower the music playback while keeping mycroft TTS at a proper higher level.
It also makes your mycroft device a Bluetooth speaker. A airplay device and a spotify connect devive. Basically you can through anything to it from your mobile device.
Squeezelite, mpd, snapcast are also there already, but not yet all configurable via voice or skill websettings. Login through ssh and some manual configuration still required.
Keep you guys posted about the development.
Do you know Plasma Bigscreen?
I have quite some stuff to play around with. RP3b and RP4, different Mics. Output usually via USB-Soundcard. Some headless (e.g. bathroom), some with a screen/TV connected (e.g. Living room). For the last I am currently playing around with Plasma Bigscreen. All orchestrated via OpenHAB.
Overall, I am not that technical - so sorry in advance for stupid answers. But I am enthusiastic and not utterly dumb So happy to help within my capabilities.
Does it make sense to test your last release from January or should I wait for the next iteration? Or in other words, with some manual configuration, would I get a squeezelite / Mycroft Raspi3 running with the current (pre-)release?
Wait, so MycroftOS comes with an airplay client preinstalled?
From alpha7 onwards, Shairport-sync is included.
Turning it on via the skill websettings, automagically makes it available on your network. So from your iOS device you will see a MycroftOS device which you can select to just play anything on your device throught the MycroftOS speakers.
Just discovered Plasma Bigscreen recently because of the AIX internet posts recently and will check it out rather sonner then later. I will not include it in MycroftOS, but would be cool to have it on a seperate RPi connected to the TV and then use MycroftOS as voice control for it. The Mycroft-GUI allows for it by instead using localhost, the IP of the MycroftOS device.
I am not sure when I included Squeezelite. Before or after the alpha7 release. Can’t check it out myself, but if you have a spare SD you could have a look yourself.
SSH in with the username and password: mycroft/mycroft and see if the squeezelite command(s) is there.
No squeezelite installed 
But impressive nevertheless. Works really well for an alpha.
It caught my problematic Jabra Mic right away and uses its speaker (instead of the connected USB speakers). Wifi setup worked on my tablet finally (computer and mobile failed, likely for me being dumb). Might test further next days.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks for the feedback about the Jabra speaker working out of the box.
The sound architecture is set up in such a way it should pick up connected hardware and give it preference above the onboard hardware. (I assume that if you attach a speaker or mic combo over usb, you want to use it instead of the embedded one)
Which version of the Jabra do we talk about if I may ask?
@j1nx Have you played with Yocto? As its not so bad if you can hack a good example.
Its a bit of a twizzle to start yocto blank but can make extremely quick boot and fast images.
Loads of recipes for the Pi, its quite well supported under Yocto.
It does compile everything which can take some time, but would be interesting how it compares.
I played with a web gui for the Pi on Yocto and it was amazingly fast to boot but its was only loading enough to get https://www.igalia.com/project/wpe going.
This one actually
https://medium.com/@decrocksam/building-web-applications-for-wpe-webkit-using-node-js-3347146013f3
Yes I know about Yocto. It is a similar type of OS as Buildroot. Buildroot is actually “older” as Yocto.
The image you tried and linked is actually Buildroot and similar as my MycroftOS approach. Perhaps in the future I will add the wpe webkit browser within MycroftOS. It will give a nice and accerated browser as possible frontend and makes it easy to implement Youtube, netflix and the others.
They are actually quite active in developing the Buildroot packages. Will see if I can dig up the link to their github repo.
Edit; Found it. https://github.com/WebPlatformForEmbedded/buildroot.git
As information, the following projects are also build upon Buildroot;
HassIO
HifiberryOS
Both well known. I actually have a similar build approach as Hassio. If you check out their repo you will see MycroftOS has the exact folder structure.
Edit2: The reason I mimic HassOS is because perhaps at some point when I consider a release to be at version 1.0.0 I might include the supervisord package. This to make it easy to use a similar docker addon approach. I did not choose for a minimalistic supervisor as base and run the real mycroft os as docker just like HassOS because hardware support wise this is way better to handle.
But perhaps in the future you could run dockers on MycroftOS. For instance even Home Assistent itself, or Mozilla Webthings. The sky is the limit, but there is still such a huge list of things to tackle/code before even consider the 0.1.0 beta, RC and hopefully Final at some point.
I have the Jabra SPEAK 410 OC here - never got it working before with Mycroft.
I actually had two USB things attached - The Jabra, that is speaker and Mic at the same time and another speaker via USB Soundcard. Want to have sound obviously via the soundcard Well, minor thing really.
OK, we will get that sorted together when I have another test version for you
@j1nx I thought I give it a go and test the snapcast option (also like evaluate against my current squeezebox). For testing, I would like to setup two raspis one running server / client (RP4) and the other running the client only (RP3). I tried to figure config options myself, but failed so far. Can you provide me with the need infos to get those up and running?
So far I experienced nothing that i would call a real problem. Lots of stuff to smoothen later, for sure, but right now this is a working product for me, at least as it comes to installing, setting up and running mycroft. Did test with various Mic / Sound setting on RP3 and RP4 - no problems so far.