Latest Node compatibility with Raspberry Pi Zero W (ARMv6)

[Berny23]

#246

First, I suggest using a dev branch for working on this to avoid confusion with users.

Regarding Node compatibility, maybe creating a docker image with the node image as base could work. Latest Alpine Linux node image supports linux/arm/v6 (should be the same arch the Pi Zero W has). See: https://hub.docker.com/layers/library/node/22.15.0-alpine/images/sha256-5ef237d055ac3c076f47eda1310f2214eb23c30a53aecdc20c35fd17780fa4ee

Can someone try to run this image on a Pi Zero W?

[Tivertoni]

If we end up using Docker, should the users build the container themselves, or should we ship the image via GitHub Releases?

[Berny23]

I would use GitHub's own Container Registry. Pushing the image via GitHub Actions is explained here: https://docs.github.com/en/packages/managing-github-packages-using-github-actions-workflows/publishing-and-installing-a-package-with-github-actions#publishing-a-package-using-an-action

[Tivertoni]

It took a while, but I finally got Docker to build. I don't have a Pi Zero to test it on right now, but I'll test the Docker image on a virtual machine once the ongoing changes in my fork are complete.

[Tivertoni]

Using 22.15.0-alpine

[VladimirKuletski]

I have Pi Zero and Pi 4.
I can try to test it in next couple of days

[Tivertoni]

I will do some last changes and then provide the image, still need to figure out if docker containers can act as usb gadgets.

[Berny23]

I think only the host has to be configured as USB gadget and the container would just have to open port 80 and bind the host path /dev/hidg0 as read/write.

[Dave247]

Regarding re-writing the readme for instructions with Docker being the recommend usage option and it's incompatibility with the Zero (as bought up by @aurarius1 in #291 (reply in thread). Due to the inevitability of older boards being discontinued and deprecated over time which will make maintaining an image more difficult, I think the readme should also include instructions for how to run the sever without using Docker to cover for this (and for anyone who doesn't want to use containers for whatever reason) but for it to be made clear the method isn't recommended and that by choosing it you know what you are doing so you don't have people opening issues when they misunderstand and/or make a mistake somewhere.

[aurarius1]

It is not incompabtile per se right now. Docker works up until Bookworm which should be recent enough and Podman works up until Trixie (the issue in #288 is a very hard size restriction of 4GB for the micro sd card which technically should work but is a bit hard to work with). So currently the container approach should work but it needs to be described a little bit better I guess.

Building it on the Pi Zero is not viabke because of the node version used in the containers - Node 18 would need to be compiled on the Pi itself which takes a long time. If we want to allow building locally then the version of Node needs to be reverted to 11. Additionally a new frontend (like my version in #291) will make building it manually on the Pi Zero compeletly out of scope since the frontend requires node 20+. This is doable in a container enviornment since you can build the frontend at a different stage and then just copy the build result into the final stage that might use a lower node version

[aurarius1]

If those options do not align with the vision of the project, I'll create a pull request reverting my changes. 👍

[Dave247]

Ah I see now, thanks for taking the time to explain it. I should be the one apologising for not understanding the nature the problem before giving input. As I'm not a contributor for the project I don't feel it would be my place to comment any further.

[aurarius1]

I think I could have worded the problem a little bit clearer but I was tired so there might still be something I miss(ed) or just straight up don't know, so discussion is always good! ☺️

[aurarius1]

Discussing it here (rather than in #298 ) makes more sense I guess:

I think it would also be a good idea to start using a dedicated documentation tool (like vitepress or similar, which can be used directly inside the repo and just use github pages). Since the instructions are already quite a lot.

Additionally creating a separate branch for the Pi Zero that is just branched before the docker / frontend updates might also make sense, for users that want to stay with the "old"/manual method of installing. Since the project was in a working state before, this should also satisfy any desire to not leave out the Pi Zero.

[Dave247]

Maybe even should have created a separate discussion thread but it's a bit late now (or maybe not). 😅

One thing I would add for the instructions rewrite is to not use the backslash as an escape character in the code examples, as it was resulting in syntax errors when trying to run it on a Windows machine using Putty to SSH to the SBC and made me feel like an idiot until I realised the problem.

[aurarius1]

One thing I would add for the instructions rewrite is to not use the backslash as an escape character in the code examples, as it was resulting in syntax errors when trying to run it on a Windows machine using Putty to SSH to the SBC and made me feel like an idiot until I realised the problem.

The only solution to that (as far is I know there is no other character in bash that can serve as a line-continuation character) is to have the commands in one single line, which would have the effect of the commands being less comprehensible.

[aurarius1]

Discussing it here (rather than in #298 ) makes more sense I guess:

I said here that the frontend requires at least node 20. Now in #299 it was mentioned that it is buildable with node:20-alpine on the Pi. For me building with node:22-alpine/node:20-alpine took a considerable amount of time, but I am trying it again (currently building on the Pi with node:22-alpine) since using prebuilt images would also invalidate those concerns and allow any Pi Zero user to build the image locally as well. It would also simplify the Dockerfile significantly

Edit: the build on the Pi Zero using node 22 ran successfully - yes it takes some time to build (also building it on my PC for the Pi), but it works and since images should also be distributed by the container registry build times shouldn't matter that much.