skysurfer.media

streamer

The streamer is a Raspberry Pi 3b+ v1.2 (c) 2015 with a webcam and a battery pack. The main purpose for this device is to be a portable 24/7 live stream. So, efficiency is desired and a command line interface is all that’s necessary. The base image is a 64-bit Arch Linux install with video support and upgraded wireless. Besides a few terminal tweaks, this is the same as the install image available on archlinuxarm.org except with updated packages and wifi that works. The install notes and instructions assume basic linux knowledge and a root terminal.

streamer-base is suitable as a starting point for many projects. I don’t have any plans to release a more minimal version than this, but I do intend to offer a few more specialized versions. 20260107-streamer-base is the current release and is the closest to the stock archlinuxarm. It could be made much smaller just for the Pi but includes all the hardware support from the original and should run on many different devices. This image will be updated periodically with any minor changes documented. This image is suitable if you have access to a wifi hotspot and want to start with a basic arch linux install on the Raspberry Pi.

streamer-console includes dev tools, network applications, graphics programs, and packages for managing Raspberry Pi hardware. This image is much larger than streamer-base and covers a spectrum of scenarios. It includes command line tools for streaming video and manipulating still images. This image is suitable as the basis for a rescue disk, an environment without access to the internet, or one that requires special networking.

streamer-graphic will be streamer-base with a simple desktop and several GUI tools. The aim will be the same as streamer-base, a minimal operating system with working wireless and basic applications that may serve as a starting point for any number of different purposes.

streamer-kiosk is planned for booting one graphical application as a wayland compositor. Originally, the idea was for running something like Webcamoid which is heavy on resources, but the same setup may be used for lots of kiosk-like scenarios, possibly adding an Android Auto version in the near future.

Webcamoid is a very cool, but very bulky non-native camera application that boasts virtual cameras and a multitude of effects – I was able to build and run it successfully on the rpi, but with problems… and that’s how this project began, after many errors, having to start over with a mess of build files and no backups. Lesson learned. Running this program on such minimal hardware is not practical and might never fully work – a program like cheese is more appropriate for this device… but a Webcamoid-kiosk is a goal, anyway.

I’m making these images for my own use, so that whole filesystems can easily be installed or restored, but I’m happy to share. Obviously, this comes with no warranty or support. Detailed install notes are included, however.

Eventually, I’ll make .img files but for now they’re only tar.gz – this page will be updated as goals are completed.

available images

Files and configurations:
https://skysurfer.media/share/

See install and backup for instructions on making and restoring images.

Stay tuned, there’s more to come…