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socktop-swipe/notes/HARDWARE-NOTES.md
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jasonwitty ce6acec299 v2 release prep: installer, README, packaging, notes; retire the v1 scripts
Installer rewritten around a preflight: distro, package manager, display
manager, window manager, terminal, tmux, cargo, git, screen locker, touch
device, device permissions and free disk are all checked BEFORE anything is
installed, and the total cost is printed once for a single confirmation.
Prompts read /dev/tty so they still work when the script is piped from curl,
and fall back to defaults with a notice when there is no terminal at all.

Several "[ test ] && action" statements were set -e landmines: under set -e an
AND-OR list that ends up false aborts the script, so a box with no lightdm, no
i3 or nothing to install would have exited silently partway through detection
-- which is exactly the fresh-Debian case the installer exists for. Rewritten
as if-statements and verified against a stripped PATH with no tmux, cargo, git
or package manager present. Also fixed cargo detection reporting blank instead
of NOT INSTALLED: the status of `cargo --version | cut` is cut's, and cut
succeeds on empty input, so the fallback never fired.

Device access now defaults to a udev rule matching touchscreens only, rather
than the input group, which grants access to every input device including the
keyboard and needs a full logout.

README rewritten for someone who has not seen the project: what the photo
shows, the hardware, install, then a config built up step by step, each step
with the YAML and the resulting map. Every example is verified verbatim
against the binary, and every relative link resolves. The mechanism and the
reasoning move to notes/: DESIGN.md, HARDWARE-NOTES.md, V1-BASH.md, TODO.md.

cad/README.md was a verbatim copy of the one inside
geeekpi_rack_adapter_release_v1/, so every path in it -- including the
screenshot -- was broken from where it sits. Corrected to its own level, and
it now states once that the 9-inch screen, the 10-inch mini-rack mount and the
19-inch rack are three different measurements.

The v1 shell implementation is removed; it stays recoverable at tag v1.2 and
notes/V1-BASH.md carries the setting-by-setting migration table.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-09-09 13:08:42 -07:00

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4.4 KiB
Markdown

# Hardware notes
Things about specific hardware that cost time to work out. Kept out of the README
because they are not install steps.
## Screen size and rack size are different measurements
Three numbers get confused because they all describe "how big":
- **9 inch** — the GeeekPi touchscreen itself, 1280x720.
- **10 inch** — the *mini-rack* standard its bracket is made for.
- **19 inch** — the standard equipment rack, which is what `cad/` adapts it to.
So "a 9-inch screen on a 10-inch mount, adapted to a 19-inch rack" is three
correct numbers, not a contradiction. The README uses the screen size when
talking about the panel and the rack size when talking about the adapter.
## The ILITEK panel reports 2-3 contacts for one finger
A physically one-finger swipe arrives as two, sometimes three, simultaneous
contacts. In v1 this was the single most expensive failure: lisgd detected the
direction correctly every time and then rejected it on
`Cfg(f=1) <=> Evt(f=2)`, which reads as noise unless you know what it means.
`touch.fingers: [1, 2, 3]` accepts all three. `socktop-swipe doctor` now reports
it in English, and the travel is *averaged* across contacts rather than summed —
otherwise a ghost-contact panel looks like it swiped three times as far.
## Phantom display outputs (LattePanda DSI-1)
The LattePanda's onboard DSI header shows up as `DSI-1 connected 1024x600` with
**zero EDID bytes** (`xrandr` reports `0mm x 0mm`), and X happily puts workspace 1
on it. Everything then looks healthy over ssh — the window is fullscreen on the
primary output — while the real panel shows an empty workspace.
```sh
xrandr | grep ' connected' # a real panel has physical mm; phantoms say 0mm x 0mm
for c in /sys/class/drm/card0-*; do echo "$c $(cat "$c"/status) edid=$(wc -c <"$c"/edid)"; done
```
Fix, adjusting the names:
```sh
sudo tee /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/20-outputs-socktop-swipe.conf >/dev/null <<'EOF'
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "DSI-1"
Option "Ignore" "true"
EndSection
Section "Monitor"
Identifier "HDMI-2"
Option "Primary" "true"
EndSection
EOF
```
Then set `touch.width`/`touch.height` to the real panel's mode. On the LattePanda
that is **1280x720**, not the 1024x600 the phantom claims.
## `sudo xset` silently does nothing
`xset` talks to the X connection of the user running it, so `sudo xset s off`
targets *root's* X connection and succeeds while changing nothing for your
session. A `sudo bash noblank.sh` wrapper looks like it worked and blanking stays
armed. It must run as the session user.
Also: `xset` is per-session and dies on reboot. The durable fix is the Xorg
`ServerFlags` snippet with all four timeouts at 0 — which also covers the display
manager's greeter — *plus* an `xset` line in the session autostart, because a
session can re-enable the screensaver after X starts. Both, not either.
Check the real state:
```sh
xset q | grep -A1 -E 'Screen Saver|DPMS' # want timeout 0, prefer blanking no, DPMS Disabled
```
## Panel resolution is not the X screen size
With a second display attached, X reports the combined root window (e.g.
2304x720). `touch.width`/`touch.height` must describe the touch panel alone or
the edge and distance maths is scaled to the wrong thing. v1 hit this because
lisgd asks X when not told; v2 always requires the values in the config.
## LattePanda specifics
Atom x5-Z8350 @ 1.44 GHz, 1.9 GB RAM, Cherry Trail Gen8 graphics, Debian 11,
i3 on X11. Binaries in `~/.cargo/bin`, which is **not** on the PATH that i3 or a
non-login ssh gives you — hence the `binaries:` block in the config.
Memory is the binding constraint. Prefer the lightweight option and count
processes; reach for tmux pane zoom rather than duplicate program instances. A
Wayland compositor with native touch gestures is not an answer here: Hyprland is
not packaged in Debian, so it means a source build on a 1.44 GHz Atom, and it
would not help anyway — libinput emits no gesture events for touchscreens on any
version, so a raw-touch reader is required regardless.
## Wyse 3040
Same silicon as the LattePanda (Atom x5-Z8350, Cherry Trail), so the stack is
already validated. Differences: 8/16 GB soldered eMMC and no M.2, so a minimal
Debian netinst and a careful eye on disk; DisplayPort out, so a DP-to-HDMI
adapter for the panel; roughly 3-4 W idle, 101x101x28 mm, VESA holes.
The eMMC is why the installer checks free space before starting a build: a Rust
toolchain plus a target directory is around 1.8 GB.