• Registered: 2019-03-25
  • Posts: 1

Topic: Is anyone still using his Novena? (What for? Why not?)

Hi,

I recently came across a Novena "Just the board" and am thinking about where to get started. But first I wanted to ask what your stories with the Novena are (One could say to find out, if it's still worth it):
- Are any of you still using your Novenas for anything useful? What for?
- If you still care, but stopped using it: Why did you stop using it?

As a 'getting started help for me' If you needed to flash an SD-Card with a Linux Image for the Novena now: Where would you start?

Thanks for your time!

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2014-06-11
  • Posts: 34

Re: Is anyone still using his Novena? (What for? Why not?)

Sadly mine has gotten queued behind other priorities and not recovered. I do wish to get to the point where the LMS6001 can be used for various radio instruments and ultimately ham-band UHF voice.

Futzing around with the battery and charger ate up a surprising amount of time, and never worked satisfactorily. I suspect that the problem is that the cells were never close enough to balance, so it never operated.

Flashing the SD card is documented at https://novena-guide.readthedocs.io/en/ … crosd-card . The repo appears to still be present.

https://rolandturner.com/

rolandturner's Website

  • Registered: 2016-09-19
  • Posts: 5

Re: Is anyone still using his Novena? (What for? Why not?)

I'm still using mine. Was working on a project for it a while ago, which I'm just starting to get back to now. I'm going to the FPGA to make an audio synthesizer. I've got a basic oscillator bank going on it so far. The synthesizer exists as a plugin for the Supercollider music programming language, and my supercollider plugin uses the FPGA to do synthesis. I've got the novena hooked up to a firewire audio interface via pcie (just had to enable firewire support in the kernel), but it also can present itself over LAN via the jack audio server. My idea is to eventually use the FPGA to do acoustic modelling of a string instrument. I've re-written all the FPGA verilog code into VHDL, since I prefer it, and will put up a git repo at some point if anyone is interested.

  • Registered: 2015-05-31
  • Posts: 117

Re: Is anyone still using his Novena? (What for? Why not?)

Hello,

I still have it (I have a laptop), but I do not use it. I tried to update the linux kernel to 4.4, but keeping up with patches resulted in oddities (shuting down requires me to actually press power off is the main one, but there were others). I also can't use firefox right now, as it crashes on start up. To be honest....I am disappointed with it. I understand it is an open source project, and I do not regret buying it because of all I have learned. But without serious software support (even with it being open source), I cannot recommend it.

chris4795's Website

  • From: Utrecht, Netherlands
  • Registered: 2014-06-08
  • Posts: 47

Re: Is anyone still using his Novena? (What for? Why not?)

Still having it. But not actually doing much with it currently.  I did just and apt update/upgrade, but that's more or less all I  do with it, once every few months. To many other things requiring time.

My original plan was to do things with the fgpa and and the rf module, besides supporting open hardware. I also need to improve cpu cooling, because it overheats quickly, when running something, right now I cannot do (bigger) compiling, because then it just shuts down. That is on my todo list or the last 2 years.   Also connecting the LCD is still on that same todo.

I am typing this on my novena, that just detected my (not so new anymore) ultra wide hdmi monitor just fine. However doing an 'apt upgrade'  with it was too much, I could only upgrade using a text vt, otherwise it overheated within a minute, but with lighter tasks it keeps running.

roheve's Website

  • From: Singapore
  • Registered: 2014-06-11
  • Posts: 34

Re: Is anyone still using his Novena? (What for? Why not?)

That's interesting. I've done full kernel compiles and the like without thermal problems (granted, cross-compilation in EC2 would have been faster). I typically operate in ~25°C and ~60%RH. What conditions are you operating in?

https://rolandturner.com/

rolandturner's Website

  • Registered: 2015-04-23
  • Posts: 39

Re: Is anyone still using his Novena? (What for? Why not?)

I still use the Novena board as my daily machine running Buster. I've been working towards releasing the work I've done so we can all get up to date.