Is Arduino Yun still in Beta? After many wasted hours I found this......

Hello All:

Please correct me if I am wrong, but if not I want to save you hours of frustration.....

I bought 5 Yun´s this week and have found these issues with them:

  1. the fileio library size() function is not developed yet

  2. the yun crashes if you read big files from the micro SD card using fileio library with a simple code like this:

#include <FileIO.h>

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
while(!Serial);
Bridge.begin();
FileSystem.begin();
File test = FileSystem.open("/mnt/sd/test.txt");
if (test){
while (test.available() ) {
Serial.write(test.read());
}
test.close();
}

  1. And if instead you use process to read a large file it returns some garbage for a file bigger than 1024 bytes.

#include <Process.h>
#include <Bridge.h>

void setup() {
Process p;
Bridge.begin();
Serial.begin(115200);
while (!Serial);

p.runShellCommand("cat /mnt/sd/showfile.txt");
while(p.available()>0)
{
char c = p.read();
Serial.print(c);
}
}

void loop() {
}

  1. I tried to upgrade the linino firmware at the downloads area and found that there is only version 1.0 from august 2013 with many bugs reported and no solution yet

So after a lot of frustration, I am writing this hoping that I am wrong and there is a solution to these problems, before I look for another platform to develop with.

THANK YOU for your comments

Sincerely

Rodolfo Magnus

+1

You are not alone.

I quite convince to buy a PI even if I'm an arduino fun.

There are new image in linino.org but Federico Fissore ( Yun Guru) say to don't upgrade for warranty issues.

Other problems are also:
liability ( sketch using bridge run maximum for a week) .
WIFI are not usable.
DHCP lease not work.

I think a lot of Yun users are waiting for a new linino image
Right now we have no news about new release.

On the forum you can found some triks for solve problems.

Regards,

Marchetto Davide

I updated the playground Arduino Playground - Yun

I (re-)read all the documentation related to the Arduino Yun, but I am still in trouble. BTW I don't see very important updates to the documentation that solves common issues.

As for @chetto983, my problems are related almost to the following ones (that represents prerogatives of using an Arduino Yun board as well as it is expected):

  • Wi-Fi liability and DHCP lease seems do not work (sketch using bridge run maximum for a week). In my case it runs maximum for five-ten minutes (see this).
  • Arduino Yun is (practically) not usable for a long time (see this).

In general, for one reason or another, I think that problems are related mostly to the Linino side, maybe to hardware problems (for example, see this), and I would like to solve those as soon as possible. More, I would like to know: when you will think to make public and official a new version of Linino that solves all these problems?

P.S.: I do not want to buy other boards because I am an Arduino fun. However I would like that at least the Arduino Yun works as expected since I bought it and at this time I am prototyping with it.

Thanks for starting this Thread.

I have been thinking of buying a Yun for a while so I have been following this section of the Arduino Forum and I had almost got to the point of asking the OPs question myself.

It's beginning to look like the Arduino team has bitten off more than it can chew.

I use Ubuntu on the netbook I am using to write this and code updates for the OS emerge every week or more frequently.

There is no sign of a formal bug reporting and response system for the Yun, and without that it is hard to treat it as a serious product.

It is even more ridiculous if the Arduino team prevent Yun owners from using available updates with warnings of breach of warranty while at the same time doing nothing to sort out the problems.

This does not bode well for the Tre, either.

It is all rather sad as I would much prefer to stick with Arduino products rather than get a Pi or a BeagleBone.

...R

I'm afraid i do agree.
I'm kind a noob for this kind of development work, i did choose the Yun because it seemed quite easier to program and very versatile. However it looks like it's all buggy, the startup process is very long and isn't reliable (i mean sometimes at startup you can't get the wifi and you HAVE to turn it off and back on to get somethin).
Yun was my first step into this kind of stuff, it won't be a very memorable one, and i just feel like going on somethin else for any further projects.

It would definitely be more than appreciable to have the Arduino Team to react and give some information about the next updates to be done.

After some parameter settings I was able to work at all (at least it seems like this) with the Arduino Yun board. It was frustrating to do it (I'm quite new and inexperienced) but if you're tenacious you can do all that you want.

Just to quote the Potikinawah's signature: "The only way to do it is to do it. (Merce Cunningham)".

speaking:
After some parameter settings I was able to work at all (at least it seems like this) with the Arduino Yun board. It was frustrating to do it (I'm quite new and inexperienced) but if you're tenacious you can do all that you want.

Obviously it's great that you have solved your problem.

However that seems to have nothing to do with the OPs problem.

The whole Arduino system is intended for the inexperienced. But the level of support (Zero?) from the Arduino team does not reflect this.

The limited (non - existant?) support for the Uno and Mega can be overcome with by reading the Atmel datasheets because those boards have very limited scope.

The Yun (and in due course the Tre) are very different. Nobody uses the CPU datasheet to help them program a PC. It is far too complex and can only be programmed with appropriate reference material and with a support system that provides Operating System updates when bugs are found. If the Arduino team can't provide that support they should stay away from complex products.

I haven't used a BeagleBoard or a Pi but the BeagleBoard website doesn't seem to contain warnings against upgrading the operating system.

...R

Hello all

I am glad and thankful to read all your answers.

It seems that at this point the yun is like a first generation car with a problem on the braking system...... some will die for others to learn how to fix the problem or wait for the next generation of a great car. In my case I am paying hard for being an early adopter.... it took me a long to decide to take this path and now I see this was wrong...

I can´t believe they are releasing the Tre and the galileo without finishing the Yun right.

My goal was to use it as the center of devices connected to the internet but at the same time easily interfaced to
the physical world. Wifi enabled so I could talk to it from a PC, a phone, a tablet.......and widely supported so bugs could easily and quickly eradicated

But the yun is so complex and new that it is close to impossible to even google for answers, tutorials, examples......

I have 3 different projects over the table that were thought to be solved with the yun.

I know I could have taken a more serious "industrial/professional" path, but I thought this was OK.

SO for all of us stuck in the middle of projects and with some boards/projects over the desk.... here is the question:

What is the easiest, closest, quickest, best alternative to be able to keep going this path more reliably until our yuns are healed/upgraded/returned/trashed?

A mature stable Arduino....tied to a mature stable linux SBC?

PLEASE post your ideas/opinions/suggestions......

Which arduino is really stable?
Which linux machine?

Or maybe a single SBC similar like the Udoo?

Or a completely different ecosystem maybe?

I feel very frustrated but am confident it is possible to out together something that after the learning curve is taken gives stable reliable results........

THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR COMMENTS

And I hope all we post will save some frustration/time of others and hopefully motivate the Arduino team to come back to the drawing board and fix this........

Sincerely
Rodolfo

As I said earlier I don't have a Yun (or anything similar such as a Pi or a BeagleBone Black) so I have no means to try what you are talking about.

Thinking some more about the lack of Yun support I have been wondering is it wrong to think of it as a general purpose Linux computer. Perhaps it would be more correct to see it as having a very limited subset of Linux capabilities which were/are not intended to be enhanced.

@rmagnus I wonder if you have tried reading your file using Python on the Linino side. If that doesn't work there is surely a major flaw in the system.

But if it does work maybe the solution would be to have a Python program to handle the Linino side and communicate with the Arduino side. That's how you would have to do it with a regular PC and an Arduino.

...R

I have a Yun, and have experienced some problems with it, especially the lack of information. Had planned using the Yun for a product prototype, but I believe that instead using a Raspberry Pi, which is both cheaper and packs quite a bit of power, in addition to having a very large user community would be the smartest choice.

Raspberry + Arduino = <3

Have a look at INO (http://inotool.org/quickstart), which for instance allows sketches to be uploaded directly from a Raspberry to any arduino.

/Christian

Robin2:
Thinking some more about the lack of Yun support I have been wondering is it wrong to think of it as a general purpose Linux computer. Perhaps it would be more correct to see it as having a very limited subset of Linux capabilities which were/are not intended to be enhanced.

Yes, for people that are getting frustrated with the Yun or wondering if it's right for them it's good to step back and look at what it's made to do. The Atheros processor does not run a typical full Linux distribution like Ubuntu/Debian/etc, it runs OpenWRT. Keep in mind there are only 16 megabytes of space available for the entire OS. The OpenWRT distribution is optimized for low overhead and size, so many common tools and libraries aren't available.

If you're looking for a full Linux experience, check out the Tre, Beaglebone Black, Galileo, Raspberry Pi, etc. There's more processor power and memory with those systems so they can run a full Linux distribution.

Don't think of the Yun as a Linux machine that runs Arduino code + shields. Think of it like an Arduino Leonardo that's supercharged with wifi and internet capabilities. You can use the Atheros processor to run python or other scripts that are good at parsing, network access, etc. which would otherwise be painful or impossible on the ATmega processor. If you think of the Yun as primarily a Linux machine I think you will be somewhat disappointed.

As far as difficulty using the Yun, unfortunately there's no magic fix in my opinion. Getting two processors to work together is not easy, especially when they don't share any memory and can only pass messages through a serial bus. The Bridge library does a pretty good job of hiding all this pain, but at the end of the day there's still a learning curve to working with multiple processors.

IMHO you'll be happiest when you learn to live with the limitations and realize the strengths of the Yun. If you're trying to do something that talks to a lot of USB devices and hosts a web page on the internet, the Yun probably isn't the best choice and a Raspberry Pi or other would work better. However if you want to read a sensor or talk to a chip that has strict timing requirements (like lighting NeoPixel/WS2811 LEDs) and make that data available to a web page, the Yun is perfect because it has the ATmega processor for realtime stuff and the Atheros processor for simple web or network serving.

@tdicola
I agree linino is not a full fledged Linux and I agree that multiprocessor programming is not easy.
I however fully disagree that those are the problem end users are reporting here.

The problems I have seen or heard reported here are

  • liability ( sketch using bridge run maximum for a week) .
  • fileio library size() function is not developed yet
  • the yun crashes if you read big files from the micro SD card using fileio library
  • ttyACM0 is unstable
  • WIFI are not usable.
  • DHCP lease not work.

These are not things related to "not running a full fledged Linux" nor to "multi processor complexity". These are related to linino bugs and a badly written bridge (they use the string class using 2K mem of the 28K available :astonished:)

I for instance have a yun like solution ( linksys wrt54G running openwrt and a arduino Mega connected via serial port) running for more than a year now with less problems than the yun.
So I think I know about the limitations of openwrt (my linksys has less memory and disk storage than the yun) and I know about multi processor programming (I have a bridge like capability in my solution) but I seem to be unable to get yun to work reliable.
The most striking example is that when I turn the yun on my sketch does not start (even if I call mcu-reset in the boot process of linino) but it does when I upload the very same sketch when the yun is running.

I personally believe that the yun is a very strong player for the embedded mobile market. But the arduino core team has not done their homework properly enough to build a reliable tool based on the yun. It only works fine for a small fun breadboard application.
I really hope the Arduino core team fixes these issues soon (like in yesterday)

Best regards
Jantje

(from @Jantje) I really hope the Arduino core team fixes these issues soon (like in yesterday)

If even one of them participated in these discussions there might be some hope.

Perhaps they are all too busy making a similar mess of the Tre.

And thanks for making the list of issues.

...R

Robin2:
I haven't used a BeagleBoard or a Pi but the BeagleBoard website doesn't seem to contain warnings against upgrading the operating system.

Personally, I don't expect the warranty on these things to last much beyond powering on.

I bought a BeagleBone Black middle of last year and still haven't done anything too useful with it. It is undoubtedly a powerful board but not exactly easy to go 'off menu' with. The website documentation is not complete by any means. There is a community but you need to be speaking their language before most anyone will deem to talk to you.

I got a Raspi last month. A great way to get going with Linux and programming. A great community, focussed on beginners. I haven't done anything on the GPIO side yet though. WiFi can be painful and I haven't had much success running it headless. The Pi uses a lot more power than a Yun and often ends up needing KVM interaction. I am not entirely convinced about relying on an SD card to boot a headless device.

My wife bought me a Yun for Christmas. I had my first web enabled project running over WiFi within a couple hours and still found time to cook the turkey. On New Years Eve, I published a link on my Facebook page and had greetings from our friends across the World, popping up on an LCD.

For the last six weeks, my Yun has been running a temperature and humidity monitoring web site, logging to SQLite, using NGinx to serve PHP, charting with Java Script, all over WiFi. It has gone up to three weeks between restarts. I made some changes to the PHP over the weekend and it's a bit unstable at the moment but that is is down to my programming, rather than the device.

I can not comment as to why people are having the game breaking issues they say they are having. The Yun has a learning curve but I haven't found it any worse than the Linux learning curve in general, the Pi in particular and no where near as steep as the BBB. I am now on my second Yun and a new Internet of Things project.

The biggest issue I have with the Yun comes from the choice to pair the SoC with a Leonardo. The SoC has a mass of potential, bottlenecked by the Leonardo's cheap MCU. The com port disconnects when a sketch is uploaded and doesn't always come back. Thankfully uploading a sketch over the network will usually sort it but significantly slows down my productivity. The lack of program memory is an even bigger issue for me. With Linux in such easy reach across the bridge, sketches are begging for string handling and OOP techniques. By the time the Yun library classes are loaded, I am having to worry about the number of function pointers needed for my own classes. I have had to refactor code, removing references to the F() macro, to trade SRAM for progmem.

What I would really like to see is a Yun version of the Mega, or even better, the Yun SoC as a separate board. I would also like to see an easier way to get started cross-compiling for the Atheros chip.

Anyhow, just thought you might like to hear from someone who has all three of the devices you mention and thinks the Yun is pretty brilliant.

Jantje:
I really hope the Arduino core team fixes these issues soon (like in yesterday)

And the good news is : Yesterday is here: http://blog.arduino.cc/2014/04/23/upgrading-the-openwrt-yun-image-on-the-yun/
I'm curious to find out whether my main issues are fixed :slight_smile:

Best regards
Jantje

Has anyone already done the update? Via terminal or via web front end?

If you go terminal, remember to copy the file on /tmp: otherwise, you fill the disk space and upgrade will silently fail.

First of all, thank you all for your answers.

@Robin: Instead of trying Python I went even to a lower level by just issuing a "cat" command over the text file that I wanted to read from the arduino side using "process" and of course that happened through the bridge.

p.runShellCommand("cat /mnt/sd/showfile.txt");
while(p.available()>0)
{
char c = p.read();
Serial.print(c);
}

Anyway, the "cat" command worked perfect with small files. But with bigger files, the arduino just halted.

So if you check my first post on this thread, two paths yielded the same bad results, my conclusion is that the bridge is buggy.

@chrake: do you think the combination of an arduino and a pi would be a good alternative? I am afraid of running in more trouble than here.....

@tdicola, jantje: when I started this thread was motivated by the frustration after finding that simple things just don´t work. Hopefully they will be fixed on the just released update. I will post my findings here.....

@Matt: your post gives me hope! Thanks. I have invested a ton of time on the yun and looking elsewhere was making me sad. What I need is to read realtime OSC packets in python, or sequenced from a text file in linux and send them as commands to the arduino side. It should not be too much for this platform! But not even being able to read the textfile has been very disappointing.

I also want a web-page to be served for configuration.

And lastly to play on the background an mp3 file, take the time reference from the player´s output and use it as cues for the text file commands.

Imagine a high end halloween animatronic figure that dances in sync with a song.

I thought it was not too much for the yun as it can be done with a regular arduino and shields.

Let´s see how it goes with the updates!

Thank you!

Rodolfo

but is still 1.0 where is the updae?