pimoroni fan shim problems

if you follow the pimoroni fan shim setup guide, you get to where...

the pimoroni fanshim service is installed at
/etc/systemd/system/pimoroni-fanshim.service

-------- here's the bit off the end off the install script output:

Setting up with:
Off Threshold:    55 C
On Threshold:     65 C
Low Temp:         55 C
High Temp:        65 C
Delay:            2 seconds
Preempt:          no
Disable LED:      no
Disable Button:   no
Brightness:       255
Extended Colours: no

To change these options, run:
sudo ./install-service.sh --off-threshold <n> --on-threshold <n> --delay <n> --brightness <n> --low-temp <n> --high-temp <n> --venv <python_virtual_environment> (--preempt) (--noled) (--nobutton) (--extended-colours)
-----------------------------

but no idea if it ever turns the fan on. that last bit says that if you run it again (having first gone to ~/fanshim-python/examples) with different numbers, it'll just overwrite the service

so i set it up again with... the on-threshold at 45C and off-threshold 30C, and now it shows the red light instead of the blue one, but it doesnt... run the fan

i had stuck a bit of tape on the led to diffuse it but instead of that i've now just set brightness to 20 instead of 255, so now its not as bright

when i was installing it, it gave me several errors:

E: Package 'python-rpi.gpio' has no installation candidate
E: Package 'python-setuptools' has no installation candidate
E: Package 'python-dev' has no installation candidate
E: Package 'python-psutil' has no installation candidate

and before that

E: Unable to locate package python-configparser

so it's kind of crazy that it runs at all. essentially the problem is that its all python3 these days and the pimoroni fan shim was designed to work with python 2.7, (edit: it says its python3, but i think its some sorta hybrid) but these modules python doesnt use them anymore, theyre dropped.

i have some sympathy for this because i also only learned how to use python 2.7. i'm sure python3 is the same, but it's not really compatible with old code, you gotta make some adjustments...

i dont think we really need all this shit. but not being able to control the gpio pins on the pi probably would do it

so i think the laziest way to get that going now is to use circuitpython?

hm... i filled up the sdcard (its only 8gig) installing python things before i could fix the problem. so i gotta make a new sdcard, start a new pi, if i want to get the fan going...

(edit: day 2 of raspberry pi bullshit)

I went and got a new sd card, 64gigs for AU 25 bucks, which is an ok price but it's too many gigs. there's a sort of surface tension among the sd cards i have, if i add any one sd card to the ecosystem thats too much space for the purpose then i'm risking a sd card cascade - but whatever, i got it, i put raspberry pi bookworm os on it

so the problem i have with the raspberry pi generally is i dont have a use case for it, the raspberry pi has a bunch of use cases like running kodi or retroarch, being a file server or print server or pihole or a nas or a little robot, i dont need any of this shit

if you really need a little computer you can buy a minisforum sort of minipc now, and its not significantly more expensive, so the technology is moving faster than the pi can keep up with, and i might never have a use case for it, i was betting that such a one would show up, but it might never

so it's not drawing very much power, but its still taking up space in my house, taking up a hdmi slot, taking up space in my brain, etc

anyway - i think a good use case for the pi would be screen sharing, like sharing video from another device to the tv. if it would run airplay on there, that'd be cool, but as far as i can tell it doesnt actually do that. so what about streaming from the pc? well, turns out you can run steamlink on a pi, and that works great! greatish. for me there was a sort of vertical scanline/interlace effect over the whole video, a bit stripey. but if i was sat far enough away from it i guess i wouldnt mind.

anyway, it worked great connected to the computer monitor. when i plugged it into the tv it wouldnt put hdmi out, and i fucked around in the config file for a while trying to get it to output different hdmi shit but i couldnt get it to do it. I think it used to work with this tv, several sd cards ago, but it doesnt seem to do it now.

so i think if i want to push video from this pc to the tv i gotta either move the pc over there (its a laptop so its not even very difficult to do that) or... buy a new streaming stick or upgrade the tv... or long hdmi cable

so the pi goes back in its fucking box, better luck next year little guy

i did not get the fan working