Raspberry Pi is frustrating and I wanted to vent

[micah]

ERGGGGG!!!!!!!!!

I spent 5 hours last night trying to get my new Raspberry Pi 2 setup. I don't mean the fancy MySensors integration stuff, I mean literally 5 hours trying to install Raspian!!!!!!

At this point I'm leaning towards a somehow broken micro SD that I got from AliExpress. I'll probably head to the computer store to buy a new one and try again.

It's so frustrating to waste so much time on a part or the process that should have been easy.

I didn't really write this post for help, although that's always welcome, it was more just as a place to vent. When I try and explain this kind of stuff to my friends their eyes just glaze over and they have no idea what I'm talking about.... I think I need to find some new friends who are technologically competent

Thanks for listening to my complaining, I feel better already

[TheoL]

@micah Don't get me started. I once spent an entire Saturday setting up a Pi. But it kept throwing errors after I've setup the wifi. Do you know what the problem was????? On the original Raspbian image there are two DHCP clients installed. They conflicted with each other. Can you imagine that? Two different pieces of software performing the same task, being installed on an original Raspbian image?

Of course, I can laugh about it now. But that weekend, I was really pssd off. Lol.

[micah]

@TheoL I don't know what the issue it yet.

I just tried another Noobs install which was supposedly successful, but then on the auto reboot I'm getting tons of ext4-fs errors until it stops loading.

Some online digging suggested it may be an issue with the 1.9 version of Noobs (which I doubt). So I'm downloading an older release and I'll try that first, before tossing the SD card and replacing it.

[TRS-80]

Do you have any old SD cards laying around? Check your old phones, too. Maybe try and swap it, just for troubleshooting purposes, with a known good one?

[sundberg84]

Agree with above - the problems i had was solved with another sd-card.

[Qu3Uk]

@micah said:

I didn't really write this post for help, although that's always welcome, it was more just as a place to vent. When I try and explain this kind of stuff to my friends their eyes just glaze over and they have no idea what I'm talking about.... I think I need to find some new friends who are technologically competent

We're here for you!
But yeah change that SD card. I had a similar thing with an ESXI install.. bad USB stick although it seemed to be working fine with anything else I did with it... 2 weekends spent on that...

[the1laz]

Yeah, sounds a lot like your SD card. I had the same issue when I first got a raspberry pi, dodgy SD cards are a nightmare. Only get them from places you can be sure of authenticity, even brand name ones can be fakes that constantly corrupt themselves.

[micah]

@TRS-80 I used to have a nice high quality 16gb card in my cell phone, but I recently gave it to my son for his tablet that's what I get for being a caring father... lol

I tried a few more installs last night of versions 1.5 and 1.8 and 1.9 of noobs and they all failed with different issues, so I'm ready to admit that it's the card.... so I'm off to the store at lunch for a new one.

[micah]

@the1laz so what you are saying is that the super cheap ones on AliExpress are not high quality real ones?

lol

I guess that's the cost of getting cheap components directly from China.... every now and then one of them is crappy

[micah]

@Qu3Uk Thanks.

[the1laz]

@micah yeah,I don't think anyone is under any illusions about random eBay/aliexpress SD cards being legit.

I was surprised at how bad they can be though. I thought that maybe they'd not last a long time, be slow, or error sometimes. Instead, it corrupted itself constantly.

[micah]

@the1laz well I have now learned my lesson

I just picked this up from Best Buy at lunch. Hopefully it'll fix the problem tonight

[alexsh1]

@micah I think you can get a Samsung Class 10 microSD card for like $10 or something. I would avoid using a noname card from eBay/Aliexpress. Saves a lot of time.

BTW - this is hardly RPi's fault, isn't it?

[TRS-80]

I just so happened to be shopping for a Micro SD card recently, to expand the storage on my phone.

Very carefully reading the reviews, some people, even ordering directly from Amazon (i.e., not a reseller) apparently have had problems! Much of the review discussions are, in fact, centered around determining whether you have a fake or real card. And this is on Amazon, even!

I'm just about as cheap as they come, but buying certain things (storage media being one of them), I bite the bullet and make sure I am getting genuine brand name, and from a reputable dealer.

Especially when "biting the bullet" only amounts to a few more dollars anyway! It's just not worth the frustration and your time diagnosing.

[alexsh1]

@TRS-80 said:

even ordering directly from Amazon...

Amazon is just a good buyer friendly platform. If you buy any media storage from a top name (SanDisk, Samsung), it is 100% genuine. For example, this microSD card:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Android-microSDHC-Memory-Adapter/dp/B013UDL5RU/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1460116787&sr=8-2&keywords=32Gb+microsd

[micah]

@alexsh1 said:

@micah I think you can get a Samsung Class 10 microSD card for like $10 or something. I would avoid using a noname card from eBay/Aliexpress. Saves a lot of time.

BTW - this is hardly RPi's fault, isn't it?

Your right, it isn't the RPi's fault, although would it kill them to just include an 8gb flash chip on the device

[micah]

SUCCESS!!!!

My new card worked, and my RPi is up and running. Now I just need to install OpenHAB onto it

[the1laz]

Great to hear!

Beware of even brand name SD cards. I've seen people stung with fake SanDisks before. Make sure you get them from a good store that's sure to be buying legit, or one that you've got definite reviews of legitimacy.

[alexsh1]

@micah said:

@alexsh1 said:

@micah I think you can get a Samsung Class 10 microSD card for like $10 or something. I would avoid using a noname card from eBay/Aliexpress. Saves a lot of time.

BTW - this is hardly RPi's fault, isn't it?

Your right, it isn't the RPi's fault, although would it kill them to just include an 8gb flash chip on the device

Re flash on the device - That's completely different discussion. What needs to be onboard is an endless talk - there are a few of those threads on raspberry.org .
Personally, I am fine with the microSD card.