Snakeoil Firmware - 1.2.2 (Gear Isolation U2)

[agent_kith]

Introduction
It's been 259 days since work on Gear Isolation U2 began. That's roughly just over 8.5 months of work. This is a major WebApp update (GUI) where the code is completely updated to use the latest Angular. How long is 8 and half months? I'm guessing that's around 30 Twitter years, or 80 TikTok years.
As a matter of face, I believe I switched jobs 2 or 3 times in this period . Either I'm getting older, or the world's pace has gone heaps faster.

The world is moving at such a fast pace, that  the Australian federal government has somehow declared a pandemic is now endemic. With the help of NSW state government, they introduced a "let-it-rip" policy with no restrictions during the busy Christmas season. End result is their dog act has unnecessary killed around 80 people every day since Jan 1 2020. Just have to hope no new dangerous strain comes out from this idiotic policy.

Lots of other things have happened that directly contribute to the long development time. Job changes is one, number of days over 40s is another (record breaking by the way). However, the primary reason is this - I have deliberately slowed down the pace and no longer working on some arbitrary deadline. Snakeoil Gear Isolation U3 will be ready when it's ready. And today it is ready.

U3 is going to look very very different. There will be an adjustment period, but I hope you guys can get comfortable with the new layout.


Known Issues

1. Music players have changed drastically. If you are using upmpdcli currently, you'll need to add an additional player MPD and configure it.
   
2. Wiki is not updated yet to this new UI. This will be a work in progress
   
3. There are some components here and there that says "Coming soon".. These are features that will be added eventually.
   
4. JRiver 28 is missing. See here for fix.
   
5. "Ubuntu Upgrade" command is missing in Systems. See here for temp workaround.
   
6. U2 is a major WebApp rewrite. Almost all elements under the hood have changed. However your browser may still be using old cached objects in this new object, causing lots of display quirks. To work around this, do a force refresh of the browser (usually it's CTRL+SHIFT+R).
   
7. More to come...
   

Download Link

1. SHA1: bcef69016f02cdf6566f78df00c0cd05f8d51bd2
     snakeoil-armv7l-1.2.2.fw (Size: 39.54 MB / Downloads: 30)
   
2. SHA1: 44eead7b52a672951c40aa638fb1635a3ef1767f
     snakeoil-x86_64-1.2.2.fw (Size: 41.38 MB / Downloads: 70)
   

Changelog

1. snakeoil-rest · Fix problem with generic firmware to Raspberry Pi
   
2. music-players · Fix download link of minimserver to use https protocol instead of http
   
3. snakeoil-ngx · Return to dashboard should return to top of the page
   
4. snakeoil-ngx · Work out better browse buttons (esp the add to RAM, and delete from RAM bits
   
5. snakeoil-rest · Show activation details in dashboard
   
6. snakeoil-rest · Fixed broken mympd connection
   
7. snakeoil-rest · Fixed when player running status is not detected properly (racing condition)
   
8. snakeoil-ngx · Alert user PulseAudio is interfering with custom built ALSA libraries and utilities in GUI
   
9. snakeoil-rest · Enable mod_rewrite if it's not on
   
10. music-players · Fix upmpdcli to use latest version of mpd. (Credit Regis Crelier)
    
11. snakeoil-ngx · Update ngx-admin to the latest
    
12. snakeoil-rest · Include netstat port status in diagnostic output
    
13. snakeoil-ngx · Properly minimize the pop up menu on small screens
    
14. snakeoil-rest · Make it possible to start more than 1 server or client (daisy chain multiple players)
    
15. music-players · Can't start upmpdcli if mpd-v20 isn't running before
    

[seafoodlover]

After updated, all the settings are gone?

UPDATE: everything FIXED after ssh reboot

BTW, should i update the ubuntu, it shows
45 updates can be applied immediately.

[agent_kith]

BTW, should i update the ubuntu, it shows
45 updates can be applied immediately.

That is something I can't really answer.

Personally, from a technology standpoint - you should always apply the latest software patches and point releases of kernel.

Not too sure as an audiophile, because updating software and kernel have the potential to alter the sound (Changing kernels tend to do this, but sometimes updating softwares may also do this). Very likely to be the power of suggestion though. Usually when I find a 'magic' combination when the music sound just right, I don't change anything about the system at all.

What I am doing now is - if the system don't sound quite right, I'll update. Otherwise I'll hold on to as long as I want until I get bored of the sound.

[patricia1066]

Just updated today, all went well after SSH reboot (thanks seafoodlover) and I am checking out the new interface. Browsing the (from 2014!) HP T520 is snappy, a far better experience. I might actually use it to clean out the dross! 
On the Dashboard the expert mode offers Network (coming soon) but that is also a separate Tab. Will this be a duplicate?

Its still http - is a secure WebApp in the works? Would that make my choice not to update less of an issue? The PC is used for music playback and updates through the WebApp only.

Sounds great, decided not to update Ubuntu.

AK thank you, thank you, thank you for the music.

[agent_kith]

Its still http - is a secure WebApp in the works? Would that make my choice not to update less of an issue? The PC is used for music playback and updates through the WebApp only.

I've been considering that.. I want to run this as light weight as possible, SSL is one more process on top. A day will come when browsers will stop loading http pages. Then I'll enable SSL and create an unsigned cert.

In my setup I am using nginx and haproxy.. These frontends manage all my SSL certificates and encrypt all the traffic, and the web server that sits behind still use http. Works really well but that's probably too much for most people .

As for the snappy response... In a way, I'm now a slightly better Angular developer compared to 2 years ago . Updating the WebApp was actually a lot of work, especially when I started with the idea to just do a half-arsed update, before deciding to just go all in and do this properly.

The entire WebApp is now PHP free. Meaning you can manually disable the PHP engine on the Snakeoil computer and save a few CPU cycles.. <- Note with this firmware I still kept the PHP engine running because folks may want to go back to the previous firmware.

Right now the Snakeoil backend is still running RESTApi. This is somewhat outdated and I'm really considering moving to GraphQL. However, those ambitions will have to take a backseat until I get a functional kernel builder.

[hkphantomgtr]

Hi, Agent Kith,

I'm sorry that I missed the "Update Ubuntu", would you please show me where to find it?  Appreciated.
​​​​​​​

[agent_kith]

Hi, Agent Kith,

I'm sorry that I missed the "Update Ubuntu", would you please show me where to find it?  Appreciated.
​​​​​​

Unsure why that is gone, maybe I have forgotten to include that when I change this section of the code. I'll investigate this later this weekend.

As a temp workaround, you can SSH into the machine, and run the following commands:

Code:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

[hkphantomgtr]

Got it, Thanks a lot, Agent Kith.

[Snoopy8]

Minor bugs.  On Win 11 laptop running Firefox, in Dashboard, bottom right corner, Home and Question buttons both gave a "Fatal Error".

[patricia1066]

Minor bugs.  On Win 11 laptop running Firefox, in Dashboard, bottom right corner, Home and Question buttons both gave a "Fatal Error".

On ChromeOS v100 (dev branch) and Brave browser V1.35.101 (Feb 9, 2022) these return a new tab with the Snakeoil-os homepage and wiki respectively. THe icons for the forum and Youtube also work. 

Perhaps a hard refresh will get it working? This clears the cache
To hard refresh on Mozilla Firefox on Windows or Linux Operating System

1. Hold down Ctrl (Control) + Shift and click R.
   
2. Or hold down Ctrl (Control) and click F5.