Sorry, I’m “that” guy who just tries to pull in way too many sources at once:
All right, well it’s time for me to fall asleep for the night. But it’s a good exercise going through this, so I can make sure the docs are appropriately detailed. And the pre-built image that I’m working on is also going to be easier to use due to this conversation 
So I unplug the Rpi and move it to the machine and then I have to run:
sudo docker run --privileged --rm -p 8000:8000 makerverse/core:latest and it will go through the whole sequence again and then run?
That is the correct command, yes. However, your settings won’t save between restarts. Here is a full command which I think should work for you, since I know you’re on a Raspberry Pi:
sudo docker run --privileged --rm -v /dev:/dev -v /home/pi/.cncrc:/home/node/.cncrc -p 8000:8000 makerverse/core:latest
The -v flag is what is different. It means it saves that file onto your RPi disk instead of erasing it between restarts.
The “sequence” will be much shorter. It already has the “image” file, which is makerverse/core:latest. That is the name of the docker image, or docker app. It’s a big download the first time, but after that, even updates are usually pretty fast.
So – that’s how you start the Docker app. But you have to keep the terminal ssh window open to keep the app open. I’ll focus on making sure the Docker version of automatic “start at boot” is working tomorrow 
Now I get these errors:
2020-08-31T03:38:21.455Z - error service:configstore Unable to load data from “/home/node/.cncrc”: err=SyntaxError: Unexpected token { in JSON at position 372
Error: SyntaxError: Unexpected token { in JSON at position 372
Try deleting the ~/.cncrc file and replacing it with the default version. It appears to have been corrupted.
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I’m ordering a rPi 4 and going try this as well. Any suggestions note mentioned above?
Let me say again: follow the README. I’m updating it faster than anything in this thread. And several people in the thread have gotten confused by trying to follow others’ suggestions, instead of just using the README. If that doesn’t work for any reason, let me know and we’ll sort it out.
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Good enough. Thanks
Okay! We now have easy to install files in the latest release.
- A pre-built Raspberry Pi image (just flash it and go!)
- A Windows installer
- A MacOS installer
- A Docker container
- A systemd service for Linux servers
- … if all else fails, the launch script should work on all devices (run
bin/launch --help)
@Orob @Bob_Craig PTAL at the RPi image on the Pi3 and let me know if it works for you (I only have a Pi4 handy atm). Please check the README notes about the first startup. But, all I had to do was boot it while connected to ethernet, wait ~10 minutes, and open http://makerverse.local:8000
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" and flash the .img to your SD" Was a bit confusing, found out that you can falsh a.zip as well
I noticed this too – in the next release, I’ve changed it so it unzipps directly as an “img” file to make it less confusing. If you end up with an .img.zip you can just rename to .img. It was just an artifact of the fact I set up a build server, which tries to compress everything as much as possible before uploading.
Thank you!
I have two questions before I attempt it…
-
When you say “flash” the image, do you have any recommended approach about how I could do that? I see you say to use your tool of choice but it isn’t clear if I can do it on the RPi or have to flash the sd on my Mac.
-
Does the image wipe the existing RPi image away? (I am testing on my current Webcontrol RPi and don’t want to leave myself without a fallback option to Webcontrol. I guess I’ll need to backup the existing image first since I don’t have another micro sd to swap.)
tl;dr: you need to do it on your computer. The SD card is your RPi’s “primary hard drive.” Just like you can’t format the (primary) hard drive while running your computer, you can’t format the RPi SD card while running the RPi. And programs like Etcher only run on Mac/Win/etc. If you need help, there are a bajillion tutorials on flashing RPi SD cards, including featured prominently on RaspberryPi.org
Yes. An “image” is a replacement of the entire SD card. This is why I’m not a fan of this distribution approach personally. If you prefer, you can try the new & improved bin/launch script first. Theoretically, all you need is that file from the Makerverse repository on your RPi… run it, and it should guide you through installation on an existing RPi without flashing the image.
** note: a “Raspberry Pi image” is not to be confused with a “Docker image,” which is how the app is actually launched by the new bin/launch script behind the scenes.
Confirmed to run (not the Maslow yet, the software) on an Rpi 3 B+ Rev.1.3.
Ssh login seems to not have been working while the warning on the screen about default password was there. Set it on the Pi, then language/keyboard…
Seems to have frozen then on first run. No terminal or anything else could be opened, later the mouse froze. Cut the power after 32 minutes.
On second run it was laggy for 14 minutes and now runs like a charm. Remote makerverse from ubuntu.
Edit: The under-power lightning bolt was flashing in the top right corner, but that went away after the Pi was updated.
Excellent! It makes sense first boot would take ~14min on a RPi3 with 1GB RAM (that’s about as low as can handle the app, so I’ll be curious to hear about ongoing reports on performance/stability). There are a couple reasons I can think of the first boot-up may have gotten stuck, including the fact that I recently pushed another update. We’ll see if it happens to others, as well.
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Learned that recently as well… never get back the time I spent unzipping images.
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@Zaneclaes here’s my update: I have Makerverse running a due board from an RPI 3B+ installed from the repo and running with npm run start. The important system settings are saved, though I have not yet completed calibration or cut anything, though I plan to do that hopefully soon. I did find a bug in makerverse and I’m so sick of the noise from the motors, I think I might have to fix that in firmware next. After some issues with the rpi, the start-prod option, the due firmware, the z axis, the incorrect work size (using a 4x4 cut size) and a number of other things, it is finally working with one system, though it is set up for 3. I submitted a github issue for $92 because it won’t take a negative number (and it should because it is the lower plunge limit).
The use of makerverse is different and it seems clumsy to me. It is less resource intensive once running, but it seems overly complicated and 2 Gig of ram required to compile it seems excessive. If it all works and this is truly the way forward, do we have a switchover target date? I do notice the sled movement acceleration as it starts and stops which is quite refined. I plan to keep a system running webcontrol until I trust makerverse, which I do not yet because I don’t understand it or what breaks it. I think there are more widgets needed to access the save settings more easily much like the calibration widget. Your instructions are sufficient for me when I take the time to read them.
Thanks for your work and time on this. I’ll work through calibration hopefully this week and make some cuts.
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All Grbl makes that noise, including my SainSmart. It’s the feedback loop when the socket is open.
What strikes you as clumsy about it? I really really don’t get this point, but Madgrizzle seemed to have the same fear so I want to understand it. It’s simply 180 degrees opposite from my intuition, so I just don’t grok the statement 
I mean, even after months of using Web Control I was making more mistakes interacting with the UI than after 2 days with CNCjs. Not to mention, the fact that I can use Makerverse on tablets on the shopfloor is huge for me.
The one thing I don’t like about Makerverse is the shuttling. I think the controls could be better. The main thing I miss from Web Control is the “right click to go here.”
it may simply be a matter of you used cncjs before webcontrol and I didn’t, so it is a history bias. We each have familiarity with our history.