Devlog #9

This devlog is going to be shorter because I was on vacation and didn’t have much time.
But I repaired the installer on Windows and added some things to the README and website.

Installer on Windows

I use Linux for my daily work, so the installer was originally tested only on Linux. I wanted it to work on every OS, but unfortunately, it didn’t.Someone tried to use PicoOS and sent me an issue saying that the installer wasn’t working on Windows.

What was the problem?

The problem was that the installer can flash the newest version of MicroPython onto the device and detect if the device is in boot mode.However, Linux shows the Pico’s mass storage device differently than Windows does, so the installer couldn’t find it on Windows.

How I fixed it

I knew where the bug was, so I managed to fix it.First, the installer detects which OS it is running on. If it is running on Windows, it uses subprocess and PowerShell to ask Windows if a Pico is connected in boot mode. If it finds one, it gets the directory of the device.I don’t have a Windows PC, so I asked the person who reported the issue to test it for me.And it worked! :3

Documentation

The website and README were outdated, so I rewrote some of the sections to make sure they are up to date.And yeah… I don’t really like documenting my projects.

Other things

• I tried to fix the problem where pressing Ctrl + C in PicoOS would crash the whole system. I managed to fix it, but then I noticed that it prevented mpremote from resetting the device. After that, I removed the fix for now.
• Fixed an app-running problem where apps wouldn’t start if you weren’t in the / directory. I managed to fix that too.
• Repaired error saving to the SD card again because one small change broke it.
• Added installed apps to the installer, so you can see which apps you already have installed.

What I want to do next

• Documentation — Right now, the README only contains some basic information and nothing close to the actual system documentation for developers. I want to create full documentation for PicoOS and explain how the system actually works.
• Fix the crash problem in PicoOS — I know I already tried to fix it and failed, but I want to try again with a different approach. I don’t know exactly how yet, but I’ll figure it out.
• Contact me — Now that I know someone is actually trying to use this project, I want to add a section to the PicoOS website where people can send me questions, feedback, bug reports, and more
• Make the app system public — Right now, the apps are only mine. If someone wants to add their own app, they don’t really have a way to do it yet. I want to create a system where people can submit their apps, write the necessary documentation, and eventually make them publicly available.

Below is the issue I received and the system I use to check whether an app is installed.