Note; this log was generated on a Pi4 4Gb running from a SSD. However, I also test on a Pi3 Model B+ and a Pi3 Model A.
For support please go to the MakerForums at: https://forum.makerforums.info/c/laserweb-cncweb/
These Instructions should work for all Pi 3 and 4 models running the Buster and Bullseye releases. Also see the wiki page about Pi installation for more info and notes on how to run LaserWeb4 as a service.
This is nice and easy; node 12 is part of the RPI OS release.
pi@lwserver:~ $ uname -a
Linux lwserver.easytarget.org 5.10.63-v8+ #1488 SMP PREEMPT Thu Nov 18 16:16:16 GMT 2021 aarch64 GNU/Linux
pi@lwserver:~ $ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Raspbian
Description: Raspbian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
Release: 11
Codename: bullseye
pi@lwserver:~ $ sudo apt update
...
All packages are up to date.
Note: if you have previously followed instructions given here showing you how to install Node10 and hold to that version, you should unpin node with sudo apt-mark unhold nodejs and then remove the node repos with sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/nodesource.list
pi@lwserver:~ $ sudo apt install build-essential nodejs npm
... lots of output, on my test system 180'ish small packages are installed.. should result in success
pi@lwserver:~ $ node -v
v12.22.5
pi@lwserver:~ $ npm -v
7.5.2
Unfortunately, Node 12 is not part of the RPI OS release (Node 10 is the standard, but we are not compatible with that) and so we need to use node 12 from nodesource.org
pi@buster:~ $ uname -a
Linux buster.easytarget.org 5.10.63-v7+ #1496 SMP Wed Dec 1 15:58:11 GMT 2021 armv7l GNU/Linux
pi@buster:~ $ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Raspbian
Description: Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (buster)
Release: 10
Codename: buster
pi@buster:~ $ sudo apt update
...
All packages are up to date.
We will ensure some required tools are in place, then run the setup script from nodesource.com, once that is done we can install nodejs and npm using apt in the same manner as for bullseye
pi@buster:~ $ sudo apt install curl dirmngr apt-transport-https lsb-release ca-certificates
... it's quite liklely that these are already installed
pi@buster:~ $ curl -sL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_12.x | sudo -E bash -
... the script will run, and configure apt to use the node12 repositories
pi@buster:~ $ sudo apt install build-essential nodejs
... should only install a few packages and result in success
pi@buster:~ $ node -v
v12.22.8
pi@buster:~ $ npm -v
6.14.15
we also need an extra Node package not included by npm6 by standard
pi@buster:~ $ npm install ip
+ [email protected]
... and more info about npm package states
These repos are somewhat large, the clone operations may be slow
pi@lwserver:~ $ ls
Desktop Documents Downloads lwinst.txt Music Pictures Public sandify Templates Universal-G-Code-Sender Videos
pi@lwserver:~ $ git clone https://github.com/LaserWeb/LaserWeb4.git
OR, if you have a GitHub account: git clone [email protected]:LaserWeb/LaserWeb4.git
Cloning into 'LaserWeb4'...
pi@lwserver:~ $ git clone https://github.com/LaserWeb/lw.comm-server.git
OR, if you have a GitHub account: git clone [email protected]:LaserWeb/lw.comm-server.git
Cloning into 'lw.comm-server'...
pi@lwserver:~ $ ls
Desktop Downloads lw.comm-server lw-setup.txt Pictures sandify Universal-G-Code-Sender
Documents LaserWeb4 lwinst.txt Music Public Templates Videos
pi@lwserver:~ $ ls lw.comm-server/
app create_env.bat docker_entrypoint.sh grblStrings.js package.json server.js
conf.env dist Dockerfile LICENSE package-lock.json version.txt
config.js doc firmwareFeatures.js lw.comm-server.service README.md
pi@lwserver:~ $ ls LaserWeb4/
dist docs jsdoc.json LICENSE.md package.json README.md webpack.config.js
Dockerfile git [email protected] logfile.txt package-lock.json src win.shell.cmd
pi@lwserver:~ $ cd LaserWeb4/
pi@lwserver:~/LaserWeb4 $ git branch
* dev-es6
Here we are double-checking we are on 'dev-es6'; the current default branch.
Now we must initilise and update the LW4 submodules
pi@lwserver:~/LaserWeb4 $ git submodule init
Submodule 'src/data/lw.machines' (https://github.com/LaserWeb/lw.machines) registered for path 'src/data/lw.machines'
Submodule 'src/data/lw.materials' (https://github.com/LaserWeb/lw.materials.git) registered for path 'src/data/lw.materials'
pi@lwserver:~/LaserWeb4 $ git submodule update
Cloning into '/home/pi/LaserWeb/LaserWeb4/src/data/lw.machines'...
Cloning into '/home/pi/LaserWeb/LaserWeb4/src/data/lw.materials'...
Submodule path 'src/data/lw.machines': checked out '685d9de193400a7bcf35d921eda21e4bedfbdc7b'
Submodule path 'src/data/lw.materials': checked out 'dce9f9ae104030e192a9716f095988dc33c0c0cd'
pi@lwserver:~ $ cd ~/lw.comm-server/
pi@lwserver:~/lw.comm-server $ npm install
... lots of output
On my Pi3B+ this takes: 3m23s, on my Pi4/4Gb+ssd this takes: 39s.
On a first run approximately 14Mb of packages will be downloaded and cached
The lw.comm-erver will bundle an older version of LaserWeb4 by defaut, but this is OK to test with
pi@lwserver:~/lw.comm-server $ node server
***************************************************************
---- LaserWeb Comm Server 4.1.000 ----
***************************************************************
Use http://127.0.1.1:8000 to connect this server.
* Updates:
Remember to check the commit log on
https://github.com/LaserWeb/lw.comm-server/commits/master
regularly, to know about updates and fixes, and then when ready
update accordingly by running git pull
* Support:
If you need help / support, come over to
https://forum.makerforums.info/c/laserweb-cncweb/78
***************************************************************
App connected! (id=0)
INFO: Requesting Server Config
^C <-- exit by pressing ctrl-c
pi@lwserver:~/lw.comm-server $
Not always needed; the version of LaserWeb4 bundled with lw.comm-server is very recent.
First we build laserweb4 and it's dependencies, then we create a new bundle for exporting to the comm-server
pi@lwserver:~/lw.comm-server $ cd ~/LaserWeb4/
pi@lwserver:~/LaserWeb4 $ npm install
... lots of output
On my Pi3B+ this takes: 11m13s, on my Pi4/4Gb+ssd this takes: 4m02s
On a first run approximately 130Mb of packages will be downloaded and cached
The results end up in the dist folder of the repo
pi@lwserver:~/LaserWeb4 $ npm run bundle-dev
... lots of output
On my Pi3B+ this takes: 2m19.803s, on my Pi4/4Gb+ssd this takes: 1m07s
No additional data is downloaded for this
This is done from within the lw.comm-server, it expects to find the new bundle in ../LaserWeb4
pi@lwserver:~/LaserWeb4 $ cd ../lw.comm-server/
pi@lwserver:~/lw.comm-server $ npm run update_frontend
... lots of output
pi@lwserver:~/lw.comm-server $ node server
***************************************************************
---- LaserWeb Comm Server 4.1.000 ----
***************************************************************
Use http://127.0.1.1:8000 to connect this server.
* Updates:
Remember to check the commit log on
https://github.com/LaserWeb/lw.comm-server/commits/master
regularly, to know about updates and fixes, and then when ready
update accordingly by running git pull
* Support:
If you need help / support, come over to
https://forum.makerforums.info/c/laserweb-cncweb/78
***************************************************************
App connected! (id=0)
INFO: Requesting Server Config
Browse to http://lwserver:8000/ from the target workstation
Pull the updates in using git
pi@lwserver:~ $ cd ~/lw.comm-server/
pi@lwserver:~/lw.comm-server $ git pull
Already up to date.
pi@lwserver:~/lw.comm-server $ cd ~/LaserWeb4/
pi@lwserver:~/LaserWeb4 $ git pull
Already up to date.
If any updates show up you can then re-run the Build steps again to obtain them.
The lw.comm-server and LaserWeb4 npm builds generate a lot of warnings and depreciation notices. As of the time of this document (12 Aug 2020) none of these resulted in a failure, but they deo look quite ominous.
If you are a JS/Node developer looking for a challenge, this would be a good target for some assistance in the project.
I have successfully followed these instructions on my 'real' target system; which is a Pi3+ model A; with only 512Mb of memory it struggled to complete the npm builds, but was successful in the end and serves LW4 very well.
The trick on low memory systems is that the npm actions fail due to low memory. But this is because npm uses a lot of memory while building, and doesnt free it up during the build. Repeatedly re-starting the build after such failures generally allows npm to eventually complete. The main LaserWeb4 build took four restarts, each time getting further through the build process until the final reatart was successful.
On low memory systems, such as Raspberry Pi's, you can stop the npm build from eating all the RAM by setting the max_old_space_size
On a RPi3 with 1G RAM I specified half the memory:
export NODE_OPTIONS=--max_old_space_size=500Add that to the bottom of your .bashrc to make it permanent