Hi All,

I'll be looking to upgrade from A46 to A47 once Avon completes his A47 tutorials, and I'm sniffing around for a little advice regarding platforms.

When I first began experimenting with A46, I settled on Win32 due to stability issues with linux (x64): linux - my preferred platform - often left the CPU racing at 100% whenever a user disconnected abruptly. If I recall correctly, this was often compounded when the user disconnected whilst running a 16-bit DOS application (possible BNU/DOSEMU issue?).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I've kind of fallen in love with the idea
of hosting A47 on a raspberry pi (2, 3 or 4?), and would be very interested in hearing about people's experiences with Mystic on the pi.

o-----------o------------o-------------------------o
TALIADON | 2:250/6 | 21:3/138 | TALIADON-BBS@MAIL.COM | o-----------o-----------o------------o-------------------------o
| "Error is a great teacher, and humility its hardest lesson." | o--------------------------------------------------------------o

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Windows/32)
* Origin: TALIADON BBS (21:3/138)

On 15 Jan 2022, TALIADON said the following...

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I've kind of fallen in love with the idea of hosting A47 on a raspberry pi (2, 3 or 4?), and would be very interested in hearing about people's experiences with Mystic on the pi.

So far so good here... I had some early dns/v6 issues that were external to Mystic and haven't had any stability issues that I've noticed on the pi...

I think the big issue for me has been compatibility... most everything works, but sometimes you do have to tweak things... I found there is no easy way around some ansi/python issues _yet_... but, I did find work-around's to that and pretty much every other issue so far...

The one thing I have not cracked yet are the dos doors... it may or may not work... not sure yet.

So, it has taken some extra work, but it seems pretty solid... and I really like it because... well... it's a pi... what's not to like... it's physically small, low power consumption, easy to manage and has all the benefits of linux...

My dev box is a 3B+ and prod is a 4B... the 3B+ is fine, but a little light on resources, not that it struggles... I just prefer the 4B with the extra umph and memory... it definitely feels more comfortable... more resources to spare...

I would definitely recommend it, if you don't mind the possibility of additional coding, depending on what you're implementing... but, honestly, it seems that a lot of mods need some tweaking anyway... and, I could certainly help you with any of that tweaking... I got a lot of it figured out now...

Hope that helps...

-seeLive

_____________________________________________________________________

(,``,"> rusty sez... Re-livin' the dream...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: seeLive's rustyHedgehog - therhh.dynv6.net:2300 (21:2/128)

TALIADON wrote (2022-01-15):

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I've kind of fallen in love with the idea of hosting A47 on a raspberry pi (2, 3 or 4?), and would be very interested in hearing about people's experiences with Mystic on the pi.

Why not ask in the FSX_MYS echo?

---
* Origin: Birds aren't real (21:3/102)

The one thing I have not cracked yet are the dos doors... it may or
may not work... not sure yet.

Yesh, since you can't use dosemu on an ARM system, your choices are really DOSBOX (if you are running a desktop, not headless server) or QEMU.

But for DOSBOX this also means no multi-node doors, I think. And QEMU is
a bit complex to setup, but I remember having it working under a pi once.
Load times are a bit long, but it worked.

The other option -- just run linux doors locally, and/or add all the door server!

I recently added a new "community door server" called GOLDMINE on my BBS,
just visit alpha complex, drop in your IP address and you are whitelisted automtically for RLOGIN access. Adding new games all the time.

Have fun!!


|04a|12LPHA
|03Alpha Complex |15- |11alphacomplex.us:2323

--- Talisman v0.35-dev (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: aLPHA cOMPLEX: You are in Error. No one is screaming. (21:4/158)

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I've kind of fallen in love with the idea of hosting A47 on a raspberry pi (2, 3 or 4?), and would be very interested in hearing about people's experiences with Mystic on the pi.

PiBBS is running a46 on a Pi 3B+ with no major issues. You'll have some
typical Linux problems when setting it up; directory structures, root priviledge if you're going to use port 23, stuff like that...However, I've never noticed the high-cpu bug you mentioned.

One big challenge you will have was mentioned by seeLive. Getting DOS doors
to work is a bit of a pain in the a$$. However, paulie420 over on 2o for
beers BBS has some experience with just that, and has a guide in his file
area, which shows how to use DosBOX to make it happen. This is what I've been working with to get my games set up. Let me see if I can remember where the file is...ah, yes...

20forbeers.com:1337
file area: bbs.Door Games
file:dosbox_rpi.zip
file:dosbox_rpi_mystic.txt

This will guide you through setting up the included 'Lisa' chatbot door. The same method should work for other DOS doors, though I haven't had the time to confirm this, yet. I was planning to do some work on that this weekend.

One caveat: only one user would be able to access the door at any time, so no multinode gaming...

Hopefully, his quick tutorial can help someone else, too!

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

The one thing I have not cracked yet are the dos doors... it may or may not work... not sure yet.

See my last message for some useful advice about that. :)

My dev box is a 3B+ and prod is a 4B... the 3B+ is fine, but a little light on resources, not that it struggles... I just prefer the 4B with
the extra umph and memory... it definitely feels more comfortable...
more resources to spare...

I'm a little surprised that you'd feel the need to install on a 4B. I mean, PiBBS isn't the only project I'm running on my 3B+, and it never even
hiccups. Everything currently running on it is using...258 MB of memory and roughly 10% CPU time. There are some CPU spikes, sometimes, like when running weekly maintenance on PiBBS, but I've never noticed an effect on the performance of the interface, even while that's happening.

In my case, I only have one 4B, and it's my bedroom entertainment. I wouldn't want to put PiBBS on there, because I use more than one PiOS image. I do a restart when I want to switch from watching video to playing retro games, for instance. Not exactly BBS-friendly.

Really, there should be no difference between the two, as far as Mystic is concerned. Neither of them are going to struggle with it. Hell, I'm pretty
sure paulie420 is using an even *older* Pi. And his BBS looks so good it will make a newbie SysOp feel inadequate! ;)

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

Yesh, since you can't use dosemu on an ARM system, your choices are
really DOSBOX (if you are running a desktop, not headless server) or
QEMU.

There is a way to run DosBOX on a headless Pi. You'd still have to install a desktop, but then you can use VNC. I just recently set this up on mine. :)

The doors themselves will run even without a desktop, since DosBOX won't be using the local console for output. However, in order to run any config program, you'd have to use the desktop.

But for DOSBOX this also means no multi-node doors, I think.

This is correct. The files get locked when DosBOX is running.

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

On 15 Jan 2022, aLPHA said the following...

I recently added a new "community door server" called GOLDMINE on my BBS, just visit alpha complex, drop in your IP address and you are whitelisted automtically for RLOGIN access. Adding new games all the time.

Sounds awesome... I like that idea architecturally... very flexible and extensible... will have to check it out... thanks aLPHA!

_____________________________________________________________________

(,``,"> rusty sez... Re-livin' the dream...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: seeLive's rustyHedgehog - therhh.dynv6.net:2300 (21:2/128)

On 15 Jan 2022, McDoob said the following...

See my last message for some useful advice about that. :)

I saw... excellent stuff! will dig into that as well... thanks, McDoob!

I'm a little surprised that you'd feel the need to install on a 4B. I

I know, It certainly could be seen as overkill, but I really like the extra power, mem and features like the rpi-eeprom for usb boot... unlike the pi 3, you can switch back and forth booting from micro sd to usb... on the pi 3 it's a one way trip.... once you set it usb boot, there's no going back... and, I tend to re-purpose my pi's lately... I have a lot of them and like to switch them around for new projects...

Now that I've been using pi4's for my bigger projects, it's hard to go back to a more sluggish response... I like seeing better repsonses from things like the moon phase mod... it's about 3x faster on the pi4... Besides, the price difference is actually worth it to me... I guess I'm becoming a pi4 snob!

_____________________________________________________________________

(,``,"> rusty sez... Re-livin' the dream...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: seeLive's rustyHedgehog - therhh.dynv6.net:2300 (21:2/128)

Hi All,

As Oli kindly pointed out I should have posted this under the Mystic group,
but the response has been amazing nonetheless.

Plenty of food for thought here.

Thank you all for taking the time to give such detailed information/links
- it's very much appreciated.

o-----------o------------o-------------------------o
TALIADON | 2:250/6 | 21:3/138 | TALIADON-BBS@MAIL.COM | o-----------o-----------o------------o-------------------------o
| "Error is a great teacher, and humility its hardest lesson." | o--------------------------------------------------------------o

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Windows/32)
* Origin: TALIADON BBS (21:3/138)

On 15 Jan 2022, seeLive said the following...

Now that I've been using pi4's for my bigger projects, it's hard to go back to a more sluggish response... I like seeing better repsonses from things like the moon phase mod... it's about 3x faster on the pi4... Besides, the price difference is actually worth it to me... I guess I'm becoming a pi4 snob!

I run my system on a Pi4 (4GB) and boot directly to a 250GB spinning Pidrive.

I like how fast everything runs. Is it overkill for running a BBS? Of course it is. I may in time get another Pi4 with less RAM to run the board on a repurpose the 4GB one for something else. But for now it does the job with no hiccups. (I use BBSLink for my doors, super easy to set up and you get the added bonus of being able to play with others).

I could probably get away with running everything on a 3B with USB booting but I had the same reservations about that one-way trip.


Jay

... I love criticism just so long as it's unqualified praise.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Northern Realms (21:3/110)

Hi All,

I'll be looking to upgrade from A46 to A47 once Avon completes his A47 tutorials, and I'm sniffing around for a little advice regarding platforms.

When I first began experimenting with A46, I settled on Win32 due to stability issues with linux (x64): linux - my preferred platform - often left the CPU racing at 100% whenever a user disconnected abruptly. If I recall correctly, this was often compounded when the user disconnected whilst running a 16-bit DOS application (possible BNU/DOSEMU issue?).

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I've kind of fallen in love with the idea of hosting A47 on a raspberry pi (2, 3 or 4?), and would be very interested in hearing about people's experiences with Mystic on the pi.

o-----------o------------o-------------------------o
TALIADON | 2:250/6 | 21:3/138 | TALIADON-BBS@MAIL.COM | o-----------o-----------o------------o-------------------------o
| "Error is a great teacher, and humility its hardest lesson." | o--------------------------------------------------------------o

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Windows/32)
* Origin: TALIADON BBS (21:3/138)

Hopefully a YouTube vid to follow it too. :-)

$ The Millionaire $
--- SBBSecho 3.14-Linux
* Origin: Vertrauen - [vert/cvs/bbs].synchro.net (21:1/183)

On 15 Jan 2022, Warpslide said the following...

I run my system on a Pi4 (4GB) and boot directly to a 250GB spinning Pidrive.

I like how fast everything runs. Is it overkill for running a BBS? Of course it is. I may in time get another Pi4 with less RAM to run the board on a repurpose the 4GB one for something else. But for now it
does the job with no hiccups. (I use BBSLink for my doors, super easy
to set up and you get the added bonus of being able to play with others).

Hey Warpslide, righteous setup... yeah, you get spoiled... and thanks for the info... I'll be checking that out as well... cheers

_____________________________________________________________________

(,``,"> rusty sez... Re-livin' the dream...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/24 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: seeLive's rustyHedgehog - therhh.dynv6.net:2300 (21:2/128)

There is a way to run DosBOX on a headless Pi. You'd still have to
install a
desktop, but then you can use VNC. I just recently set this up on
mine. :)

Awesome. I think I was trying to use a linux server build without a
desktop, so that makes sense! Thanks.


|04a|12LPHA
|03Alpha Complex |15- |11alphacomplex.us:2323

--- Talisman v0.35-dev (Linux/x86_64)
* Origin: aLPHA cOMPLEX: You are in Error. No one is screaming. (21:4/158)

There is a way to run DosBOX on a headless Pi. You'd still have to install a
desktop, but then you can use VNC. I just recently set this up on
mine. :)

Awesome. I think I was trying to use a linux server build without a desktop, so that makes sense! Thanks.

So was I, at first. DietPi doesn't come with a desktop, and I'm running it headless. The DosBOX console definitely didn't like running on the
commandline, through a ssh tunnel. Oddly enough, though, it worked fine when running output through the BBS...?

So, to use the config programs that some doors have, I simply installed LXDE and TigerVNC. Don't forget to setup autostart, and 'bob's yer uncle'!

Cheers!

McDoob
SysOp, PiBBS
pibbs.sytes.net

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: PiBBS (21:4/135)

On 01-15-22 11:19, McDoob wrote to aLPHA <=-

Yesh, since you can't use dosemu on an ARM system, your choices are
really DOSBOX (if you are running a desktop, not headless server) or
QEMU.

There is a way to run DosBOX on a headless Pi. You'd still have to
install a desktop, but then you can use VNC. I just recently set this
up on mine. :)

I've done it with Xvfb, which provides the X server to keep DOSBox hapy, but no actual GUI that can be reached by the user. I'm using DOSBox to run some old mail processing software from a Bash script. :)




... What do you call and owl that does magic? Hoodini
=== MultiMail/Win v0.52
--- SBBSecho 3.10-Linux
* Origin: Freeway BBS Bendigo,Australia freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)