Find missing commands on your #RaspberryPi

Just saw this on the Raspberry Pi Forums from ‘sprinkmeier’ but haven’t tried it yet.

If, like me, you need to run a command, but it’s not installed, and you haven’t a clue how to find the right apt-get package, this is for you!

There is a ‘command finder’ package that you can install that will interpret any command that you type in (and is missing) and tell you what package should be installed to enable it.

sudo apt-get install command-not-found
sudo update-command-not-found

Then logout and login again and try it:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ uuencode
The program 'uuencode' is currently not installed.  To run 'uuencode' please ask your administrator to install the package 'sharutils'

If you are root, it will tell you how to do that:

root@raspberrypi ~ # uuencode
The program 'uuencode' is currently not installed.  You can install it by typing:
apt-get install sharutils

There’s also a ‘guesser’ which will try and work out what package you mean if you don’t know the whole thing:

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ dhcp
No command 'dhcp' found, did you mean:
 Command 'dicp' from package 'dish' (main)
 Command 'hcp' from package 'lam4-dev' (main)
 Command 'chcp' from package 'nilfs-tools' (main)
 Command 'dhcpd' from package 'isc-dhcp-server' (main)
 Command 'dccp' from package 'dcap' (main)

Google I/O AirShow streaming webcam video via @Raspberry_Pi from RC blimps

The Google I/O show, a three-day event featuring all the news that’s fit to print from everyone’s favourite search provider, is currently broadcasting live video from radio controlled blimps. The important news for us is that there is a Raspberry Pi onboard each blimp, streaming video from a webcam and controlling a servo to point the camera. Read more here and watch a video of them in action

Installing avconv on the #RaspberryPi

Some of you with the camera may have been trying to install avconv by using the following:

sudo apt-get install avconv

As you have probably discovered, this does not work and it reports that it cannot find the package. (I know, it’s confusing). But it’s not actually missing, it’s just part of something else!

To do the install, do the following:

sudo apt-get install libav-tools

Easy timelapse with the #RaspberryPi camera module

The Raspberry Pi camera module has built-in timelapse functionality.

Here’s a command to try:

raspistill -o timelapse%04d.jpg -t 5000 -tl 1000

This will make a time lapse run for 5 seconds (5000 milliseconds), taking a picture every 1 second (1000 milliseconds). It will create files called timelapse0001.jpg, timelapse0002.jpg to 0005. (It uses 4d to say ‘number to 4 places’).

Please note that if you Ctrl-C during the time lapse, the camera may get ‘stuck’. I’m keeping an eye out for a way to reset it, but I haven’t found it yet.

Hopefully this will be useful for someone – I’m trawling the Foundation forums for some of these little bits and pieces so that others don’t have to 🙂