I have recently had alot of thoughts about playing with LEDs and related components - into oh-so-sparkly LED land we go.
No, lol, to microcenter we go. XD
A friend and I make our way through the store and find ourselves staring at the giant wall of assorted electrical do-dadaries, where I find a tiny touch screen. It even had a baby stylus inside.
Obsessed. Must have.
I had to have it and find a use for it. It's one of those components that one may call a "hat" for a board.
Well, how can I make use of this amazing find I wondered.
So then of course I had to get a raspberry Pi, of which I have no prior experience with. Keep reading. It's entertaining.
I go with my new raspberry Pi and touch screen - this is going to be fun!
I plug it all up and everything turns on and that's a good sign. So then, I discover I need to install an OS to my raspberry Pi. No sweat right? Well, idk the last time you used a micro SD but I definitely did not have one laying around or a related adapter. The recommendation here is to make sure you have a micro SD to go with your raspberry Pi.
So I said, no problem. We got ports. Let me just find a USB. So my friend and I load the OS to the USB - no problem.
Now, we're not going to see anything on this tiny touch screen until we get it configured. How you ask? Well, with another monitor so you can see! Ha. Yeah, guess what else I didn't have. Yeah, a micro HDMI cable.
Well now I don't technically need a hardwired monitor if I just ssh into my pi, right? Trying to ssh into my pi was literally the best part. Before we can discover raspberry pi on the network, raspberry pi must be added.
So without removing any hardware or nails from my walls, I scooted my ethernet cable... XD, yes, scooted - inch by inch closer to the raspberry pi. It was quite a show. The cable barely reached, but it did! This is why we have a floating pi.
So at this point I am reaching through wires to google for answers, much to the amusement of my friend.
I had to configure a user account on my PC and save that on the thumb drive. That was a lot of going back and forth with the USB from the Pi to the computer. It for sure was not efficient. XD Every time I made a change, I had to go back and fourth. This repeated several times. I had to create a user name and configure a password, encrypt said password semi-manually, and save it back to the drive.
The good news is I was able to get the device discovered. The bad news is it doesn't like my passwords. This is literally a chain of ridiculousness. This is what we call learning I suppose. Nothing some continued determination and legwork can't resolve. XD
It's kind of about the journey isn't it. Not so much the end.
Top comments (7)
lol this whole saga feels super familiar, always end up crawling around for cables or adapters i never remember to buy. honest, the little hurdles kinda make it stick more. you figure the pain makes the win at the end feel better, or is it all about bragging rights after?
Yes! I always end up learning a ton - even if it's not quite what I intended! Then you can use that information for other things. It's all connected... even if you don't have cables. XD As far as bragging lol, it's just kind of internal pride i'd say. Sense of personal accomplishment. Even if you know it was a hot mess! hahaha
This story felt like a real adventure!
Sometimes the winding path of learning is even more exciting than the destination.
Thanks for sharing this fun and challenging experience with us...!
I'm glad you enjoyed it, thank you!
🙏
It’s honestly refreshing to see someone power through all the little hassles - setup pain is so real but you gotta love the chaos.
It's definitely comedy at a certain point. There is so much that people just don't tell you. Like oh yeah btw you need these 10 other things for it to work... a one hour project turns into a 2 day excursion really fast. And yeah - I see a lot of wizards everywhere doing amazing things - but the struggle is real. Not too many people sharing the true grime that comes with learning. Thanks for your comment - glad you liked my tech drama XD