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From @samlane-ma

About the raspi zram issue from Discourse - Apparently there is a package now that either is no longer part of the default install for whatever reason, or was inadvertently left out. (I read somewhere that the kernel modules package was split in two, but I don't know enough to know if this is true or not). But on a fully updated install, 5.13.0-1010, installing the package "linux-modules-extra-raspi" installed the missing zram module and also several others. Rebooted and zram works now.

So this info needs to be added to the README at a minimum

When trying to respin an image post release updating newer kernels are installed. Normally the last three kernels are kept before being autoremoved.

Really for respinning images we need to delete all but the newest kernel to ensure the image is small as possible.

At the moment have to manually add to the setup script to delete:

e.g.

apt purge -y linux-headers-5.13.0-1008-raspi linux-image-5.13.0-1008-raspi
apt autoremove -y

On the remote tab, hovering over the findmypi button shows a tooltip that obscures a similar tip text at the bottom.

Let's remove the hover tooltip

Recording this to investigate further at some point

It maybe this issue with my 16 core machine and the up-to-date qemu

https://gitlab.com/qemu-project/qemu/-/issues/285

Will need to test if setting this environment variable is a viable workaround G_SLICE=always-malloc

Raised from this,

need to consider this - documentation, testing - maybe add to the app - or is it out of the box.

https://ubuntu.com//blog/how-low-can-you-go-running-ubuntu-desktop-on-a-2gb-raspberry-pi-4

https://youtu.be/z9qIUUXx8tQ

Some people are reporting single pixel line on the left of monitors.

Seems to be a flaw in the raspi?

Workaround is adding overscan_right=1 to config.txt.

Is thus available via pibootctl? Wondering if such a checkbox should be available on the display tab.

@samlane-ma

Find My Pi stuff works really nicely - so congrats for working through the issues here.

Initial thoughts:

1. Installing nmap as part of a dependency of the config app is problematic in some countries. I think its a great technique to use to find pi's but I would err on the side of caution - a button possibly needs to be in the FindMyPi mode that first displays a dialog warning users to check if nmap port-scanning is legal in their country before installing.
2. So the UDP server option is perhaps the first port-of-call here. Perhaps on the remote tab have an option to
   a. start findmypiserver.py
   b. enable an autostart file to run findmypiserver.py on logon.
3. if nmap is installed then there doesnt seem to be any point to autostart findmypiserver since that should be the default. I dont find the speed really an issue on my home network.

Looking at current videos and comments some people may needs little help to understand what each option offers. E g. GPU memory can improve video playback.

Let's consider if we can give hints to users e.g. tooltips and/or focus updating statusbar.

For 21.04 kms is now the default.

Ubpi display says fkms is the default.

Maybe the "default" text is superfluous?

I tried Minecraft 1.16.5 with optifine and it runs so bad its unplayable
0-8fps with average of 1-3fps is very bad
Minecraft is unplayable
Please fix this with in future releases aka 21.10
Minecraft should not run that bad on it
I have seen better on beta's
as some of the beta budgie builds, minecraft was actually playable with average above 5fps

Thinking of this commit 377eb62

Would it be a good idea to have some-sort of command line interface to allow ubpi to be launched correctly if new pi variants are launched/found between ubuntu releases?

so for example

<app> --model CM4 --cpuinfo "Pi Compute Module 4"

could then make sure the app runs up in the mode we expect

or maybe

<app> --force-pi-mode
<app> --force-findip-mode

To override which interface is run ... for example maybe you could have a suite of Pi's - and maybe a user would want one to be finding the other Pi's on the network

and/or

  <app> --get-cpu-info

To obtain the current cpuinfo.

Maybe other 'hard-coded' or deemed "get-info" type parameters could be useful?

When using our XRDP remote option, some environmental variables are incorrect. For example, XDG_DATA_DIRS is missing "/usr/share/budgie-desktop". This prevents the desktop items from "/usr/share/budgie-desktop/applications" from appearing in the menu in a remote session, causing items such as system monitor, or settings such as background, mouse, printers, etc... to not show.

Fix seems fairly simple (tested):
Create an environment.xrdp file to address these variables
instruct /etc/xrdp/startwm.sh to load them

Reminder to look at the following:

1. GNOME To-Do is installed on the tech preview 2 image - done by removing in the setup file
2. Snap-Store is installed on the tech preview 2 image - dunno why.
3. Need to separate raspi gsettings changes (theme/animation etc) from the arm-desktop package. This is needed to allow the findmypi stuff to be installed on amd64 (otherwise the arm-desktop package will change the theme/animation on 64bit installs). - In Progress.

As detailed https://ubuntubudgie.org/2021/08/all-in-one-pc-with-ubuntu-budgie-and-raspberry-pi/

Consider how to document the suggestions.

Also consider whether to introduce a "8Gb" optimisations option to-do these via software i.e. what is the risk/what is the reward.

According to official documentation:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/config_txt.html

All Pi 400s and newer revisions of the Pi 4B are equipped with a second switch-mode power supply for the SoC voltage rail, and this allows the default turbo-mode clock to be increased from 1.5GHz to 1.8GHz. This change should be safe for all such boards, but to avoid unrequested changes for existing installations this change must be accepted by setting arm_boost=1

arm_boost=1 is the default in the current Ubuntu image.

This means that on a newer 4B, when no overclocking options are set, it will actually be running at 1.8GHz instead of 1.5GHz, as long as arm_boost=1 is set. However, older 4B revisions will still be at 1.5, so we cant simply assume arm_boost means higher speed. Since our Configuration tool assumes if there are no overclock options set in the config.txt file, it is running at the default 1.5GHz, this will actually be incorrect on a newer 4B revision. The tool needs to be tweaked to ensure that we determine the correct current clock speed.

Additionally, since the tool just clears the overclocking settings from config.txt, when we manually force 1.5GHz using the tool, on newer models it wont set the 1.5 clock speed, it will default to 1.8 instead unless we manually add the arm_freq=1500 line or clear arm_boost.

This doesn't affect the Pi400 as we have already taken into account it runs at 1.8GHz by default.

A couple thoughts:

1. Instead of looking at the config.txt file and guessing, it might be possible to use an alternative method to see clock speed, possibly how Budgie Welcome's System Information page does it. This seems to always be accurate.

2. It might be possible to get the Pi's revision number and see if arm_boost is set, and determine clock speed that way. This will need more research to know which revisions support this.

Out of the box the lock screen is left to kick in. Fine for a desktop. However, when using VNC, you can be left with a hanging/static display until you manually log in.

Likewise - on boot the login window is displayed forcing you to login before using remote options.

Enhancement suggestion - have a tickbox on the Remote tab to turn on autologin for the current user / disable lock screen

Let's see if we can removed these packages from the build since they are seen when updating for the first time

Raising from here https://discourse.ubuntubudgie.org/t/testing-22-04-are-you-brave-enough/5461/46?u=fossfreedom

Need to keep an eye on this in 22.04 - seems like the at least the 4GB version of the pi needs a swap file to operate.

Question is why - feels like a bug - so needs investigating.

Workarounds - documentation in README and/or software solutions may have to consider as well.

Nice to have:

Need to decide whether to have a means to recover and reduce the number of processes running which should improve memory matters etc

e.g.

1. Uninstall snapd if deemed not needed - this will remove budgie-welcome but with the advantage of reducing memory needs
2. Untick desktop icons support - reduces memory slightly
3. dconf untick various gnome-settings-daemon plugins - lots of plugins are enabled by default - doubtful some of these are needed for a pi
4. Look much more closely at the number of budgie applets we have running - are they all truly needed? Will reduce the number of budgie-panel processes reported by ps -ef
5. Generally wander through ps -ef and look to see processes are running / are they truly needed and how they were enabled i.e. package that is installed that enabled the process(es)