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Calibration - again

Posted: 15 Feb 2014, 05:21
by denisik
Hi. I think this is an incorrect solution - to use another OS to get calibration values. It takes very much time: to boot, to check and save settings. For example, I use kiosks in prisons, so touch screen is the most weak device. I had to change it very often, and this process is not fast at all.
Maybe there is a better solution?
We use USB-stick with 2 partitions. The one keeps rootfs, the other keeps variable settings - network config, vpn password, screen resolution, etc.
Your method is to mount partition read-only. I offer to keep variable settings on dedicated server and read values via rsync, scp, nfs or somenting like that.

Re: Calibration - again

Posted: 15 Feb 2014, 21:44
by fanthom
I offer to keep variable settings on dedicated server and read values via rsync, scp, nfs or somenting like that.
do you mean our server or your own one? if own then you could customize ISO and use rc.local to fetch calibration settings depending on hardware on which the kiosk is booting.

btw: afair jmalon was saying that you could include several calibrations in one Xorg conf file so no need to fetch anything...

Re: Calibration - again

Posted: 16 Feb 2014, 02:41
by denisik
The boot flow looks like:
start X.
Check if calibration values is available "somewhere".
If not, run "xinput_calibration --output-type xinput" and save output "somewhere".
Run "somewhere/calibration-values".
Run browser in kiosk-mode.
That's all.
btw: afair jmalon was saying that you could include several calibrations in one Xorg conf file so no need to fetch anything...
This does not solve the main problem. I've checked all of my kiosks -- each touchscreen has its own values. I had to calibrate every new screen.

Re: Calibration - again

Posted: 16 Feb 2014, 08:02
by fanthom
save output "somewhere".
kiosk supports iso9660 which is read only and swap so you cant save anything/anywhere (and i have no plans to change that) except maybe for uploading over network.
each touchscreen has its own values. I had to calibrate every new screen.
even the same models?
that would mean you have to identify every PC somehow (how?) and store its config in some remote location.
all tweaks could be kept in a separate module easy to transport between new kiosk releases so you could enable pxe boot for kiosk and add one extra module for calibration.

Re: Calibration - again

Posted: 16 Feb 2014, 10:35
by denisik
kiosk supports iso9660 which is read only and swap so you cant save anything/anywhere (and i have no plans to change that) except maybe for uploading over network.
> yes, I think nfs will be best solution
each touchscreen has its own values. I had to calibrate every new screen.
even the same models?
> yes. they may be upside-down flipped or left-right mirrored, their coordinate grid differs in 10-100 points, etc.


that would mean you have to identify every PC somehow (how?) and store its config in some remote location.
>MAC-address or IP-address, maybe

all tweaks could be kept in a separate module easy to transport between new kiosk releases so you could enable pxe boot for kiosk and add one extra module for calibration.
>I thought about pex-boot, but it looks difficult to me to make distribution. Now I create new distro from scratch.

Re: Calibration - again

Posted: 17 Feb 2014, 10:04
by fanthom
I thought about pex-boot, but it looks difficult to me to make distribution. Now I create new distro from scratch.
getting pxe to work is much easier than building distro from scratch :wink:
especially that i have posted HOWTO for porteus kiosk pxe.

up to you and good luck!