Daily Archives: 2016-10-09

How to configure RealVNC on a Pi with 3.5” LCD

Raspberry Pi, RealVNC,

With the release of a new Raspbian version (2016-09-23) RealVNC have ported their VNC server and viewer applications to Pi, and they are now integrated with the system and PIXEL desktop. With raspi-config, one can enable start of RealVNC at boot time. This is particularly useful, if you’re running your Pi headless a (without monitor), but still want to access the LXDE desktop. RealVNC usually works out of the box, but …

35lcdtft… it doesn’t, when you connect a non-standard display. I recently upgraded one of my Raspberry Pi’s with a 3.5” LCD touch screen, which connects through the GPIO header and has a resolution of 320×480 pixels. Unfortunately, with the display attached, VNCviewer’s desktop size also shrinks to 340×480 pixels which is very inconvenient to read when it is displayed on a 1920×1080 HDMI monitor. Scaling of the window makes its contents very blurry.

However, with some special settings, one can circumvent this problem:

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How to enable USB OTG mode on a Pi Zero

Networking, Pi Zero, Raspberry Pi,

Thanks to the Maker Faire Berlin on 1st and 2nd of October, I was able to purchase a Pi Zero board, which currently is out of stock  at most distributors. Indeed, it is a nice little board for experimenting with the GPIO header.

IMG_8215

In contrast to other Pi versions, it features a micro USB port, which is capable to connect in USB OTG mode (On-The-Go) to a host-PC. Thus, there is no need for a power supply and WiFi dongle, since communication with the host-PC is established through USB networking. This is especially useful if you want to use the Pi Zero in headless mode, for example in a classroom environment already equipped with desktop PCs and/or notebooks.

There are already  other tutorials which describe how to enable USB OTG mode on a Pi Zero. However, I’ve been struggling with configuration of a fixed IP and internet/ network connection through USB on the Pi Zero. So here are some helpful instructions on how to achieve this:

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