Comment by jki275
19 days ago
https://github.com/DennisSc/PPS-ntp-server
Not mine, just something I found. I had a feeling one could run a GPS backed NTP server on a microcontroller without too much difficulty.
19 days ago
https://github.com/DennisSc/PPS-ntp-server
Not mine, just something I found. I had a feeling one could run a GPS backed NTP server on a microcontroller without too much difficulty.
Cute, but missing some things that real ntpd on *nix offers.
And I like ntpd. I also like self-contained systems that I can tweak without using a compiler and a dev environment. I'm a fairly competent computer user, but I have zero aspirations of being a programmer when I grow up.
(If a Pi Zero W can do the job, then: Why must it not do that job?)
Oh of course, if you want to run it on a Pi go for it, makes no difference to me. I just had a feeling there was a way to do it without Linux.
I'm generally a fan of make it small, and Linux is kind of the opposite of that. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions on the topic as always!
It's all good. Lightness certainly does have advantages in many circumstances -- I've got some projects in the works that use ESP32s and Pi Picos. But once I set them up, I never want to touch the code again; adjustments will be made in "userland" using a web UI. (Remember, I don't want to be a programmer when I grow up.)
Thanks to these discussions here in these threads, I've upgraded my Raspberry Pi 4 router-box (which has cheerfully been running OpenWRT for years) to the latest stable OpenWRT. It took some time to get this done but it is done, and I managed to get it done without tossing my existing configuration or disabling the household's Internet access for more than a few tens of seconds at a time.
And I've also gone through the NTP config on that router, which [previously] was never quite right -- mostly, due to complications with BusyBox also knowing how to be ntpd (ffs) and poor system documentation (which I think I may spend some time improving).
Sure, there's other ways to do all of these things... but Raspberry Pis are fun for me in ways that other hardware (black-box streaming devices, black-box routers, even black-box GPS clocks) lack. I even take one or two of them car camping with me, where their somewhat unique ease of downloading and flashing an entire pre-configured specialized system image onto a different easily-swapped, inexpensive SD card can be tremendously useful[0].
[0]: Stuff I can't do with an MCU, or with a regular PC. "Oh, this carefully-prepped LibreELEC Kodi can't work for Movie Night in the Woods because the USB stick I carefully copied a bunch of movies to is somehow empty and the data that should be there is nearly three hours away? Let's just take that card out (preserving that configuration completely), and follow the directions to get a decent Plex client working the Right Way on a different cheap-like-chips SD card. I can do all of this from my phone."