I would like to see if I can challenge your assertion about not being able to
re-write an sd card while it is in place. Here is how I would do it. I would
buy a raspberry pi 8 gb I would create a 2 GB ram drive. It might take some
work but I would move the OS into the ram drive then unmount the sd card. Then
you could do what ever you like to the SD card while the PI was running. If of
course there was a power outage you would be out of luck but you could use an
Anchor battery pack to keep it running while you did your sd card work. You
could also use a USB stick to go back and forth on and be able to load and
unload your SD card. I am going to have to look and see if someone has already
done this as a project for fun.
-----Original Message-----
From: raspberry-vi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <raspberry-vi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Jeffery Mewtamer
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2021 1:13 PM
To: raspberry-vi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [raspberry-vi] Re: intro
To clarify, I've never gotten sighted assistence with anything I've done with a
Pi, and the last time I got sighted assistence on a Desktop or Laptop was years
ago to fix the boot order in BIOS, which is only necessary because a broken
boot order has become industry standard for some reason. Being independant is
important to me, and I'm annoyed both by people who assume I can't do something
just because I'm blind and by people who use their disability as an excuse to
throw themselves a pity party.
That said, as the old saying goes, no man is an island. We all need help from
time to time and knowing when to ask for help is just as important a lesson as
how to be independent. Fortunately, the Internet makes it easier than ever to
find knowledge when one finds themselves in a situation when the help they need
is "how do I do this?", but there are still cases where hands-on help is
needed, and while hitting up against the limits of one's independence can be
frustrating on its own, the sense of having no one to turn to in those moments
only makes it worse. And yeah, the go to example for getting help when you are
blind is someone with a functioning pair of eyeballs, but honestly, even
another blind person I could ask to lend a hand would be helpful from
time-to-time, and in some cases, might actually be preferable to a sighted
person... hell, even if I never have to ask them for help, just having someone
I could have face-to-face chats about Linux and other techie subjects on a
regular basis would be great.
And yes, once you have the microSD card written and ssh and wi-fi configured,
there's a lot you can do headless... But as far as I know, you can't just leave
the SD card in the Pi, connect the Pi to a desktop as a card reader and then
use dd on the Desktop to create a backup image of the card, restore a backup if
something breaks to render the card unbootable, or write a fresh image to the
SD card. As far as I know, these actions require physically removing the SD
card, connecting it to a desktop, writing or creating an image, and then
putting the SD card back in the Pi.
As for soldering, I've never tried it, but honestly, the prospect of doing so
would probably fill me with trepidation even if I still had my vision and
possibly even if I had 20/20 in both eyes. I had enough trouble keeping my
handwriting legible for other people, and I would think soldering would require
a higher degree of fine motor control in one's hands, especially with how
densely packed modern circuit boards are. I'd sooner try my hand at bread
boarding, though I haven't even played around with HAT boards or prebuilt
components that plug into the GPIO pins yet.
Also, I don't have access to a useable Windows box... and the last time I did
outside of a school setting was before I went blind... Been a full-time Linux
user for about 15 years and I've only been blind for about 8.5.
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Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are trademarks of the Raspberry Pi
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Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
===========================================================
The raspberry-vi mailing list
Archives: //www.freelists.org/archives/raspberry-vi
Administrative contact: <mike.ray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
-----------------------------------------------------------
Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are trademarks of the Raspberry Pi
Foundation.
This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the views and
attitudes expressed by the subscribers to this list do not reflect those of the
Foundation.
Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
