Raspi-updater, how do I install it?

Assuming you mean the Hexxeh rpi-update tool for updating kernel and firmware ?

There's instructions here https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update

Oh I thought I read somewhere that if you are using the latest (current) Raspbian you no longer needed to run the most useful Hexxeh software as the Raspbian distro does the same thing for you automagically? But my memory is far from perfect. (Cells not RAM grin)

Ray

Possibly.. I use bootc's kernel with some local mods of my own, so haven't really followed that. I'd be rather pissed off if it overwrote my local changes.

I do think it's rather naughty of them to do stuff like this automagically as it will break things sooner or later.  For people who don't understand what's going on you can imagine the cycle - Pi updates itself automagically, Pi is bricked, reimage SD Card, boot & Pi updates itself automagically, Pi is bricked, rinse, repeat...

Followed sometime later by posts on the forum saying 'We thought you said the Pi was unbrickable ??'

I once had a rack full of windows servers running automatic updates reboot to a blue 'inaccessible boot device' screen due to exactly this sort of broken thinking. Never again.

Interesting that the Raspbian image appears to force the nameserver to be 8.8.8.8, I wonder if that's so that it can phone home to automagically do stuff behind your back..

selsinork wrote:

 

Pi updates itself automagically

My Raspbian doesn't seem to do this, thank goodness.  But I'd like to find out how the automatic update system works, if there really is one in Raspbian somewhere.  What program controls the updates, in theory?  Maybe I was lucky enough that it failed to start.

My Raspbian doesn't seem to do this

Hopefully there's nothing actually doing it then, my only interaction with Raspbian was to use it as a fixed point for the 1.8v / lan9512 tests. That's how I know it defaults to 8.8.8.8 for dns.  Other than that it's all speculation based on Rays comment.

But I'd like to find out how the automatic update system works, if there really is one in Raspbian somewhere.  What program controls the updates, in theory?  Maybe I was lucky enough that it failed to start.

I'd like to think it's just the normal way of configuring an apt repository and then running apt-get update, but I really didn't look.

I gave up on any distro that does dependencies long ago as they're invariably either circular or just outright invalid. The best one was a suse version some while back that basically formatted the disk when you asked it to remove the xeyes demo program.

Even on raspbian, I tried to remove some, IMHO crap, editor (leafpad? I forget) and it basically forced you to remove lxde at the same time - find the magic dpkg command to ignore the invalid dependency, remove it and what do you know, lxde works just fine without it.

selsinork wrote:

 

Even on raspbian, I tried to remove some, IMHO crap, editor (leafpad? I forget) and it basically forced you to remove lxde at the same time - find the magic dpkg command to ignore the invalid dependency, remove it and what do you know, lxde works just fine without it.

Aye.  After so many years of being spoiled by Gentoo flexibility, I noticed the issue you describe in Debian on Pi.  You don't have any choices.  The choices are those that were made for you by the Debian repository maintainers, and if their choices do not reflect what you want then you're out of luck.

Unfortunately Gentoo is just too heavy for these low-powered ARMs.  It would take a week or more to have a system update itself, with everything being compiled from source.

Unfortunately Gentoo is just too heavy for these low-powered ARMs.

It's my feeling that a lot, if not all, of the traditional desktop distros are too heavy.

It would take a week or more to have a system update itself, with everything being compiled from source.

The trick of course is to cross compile it on something faster if possible.  I'm cross compiling the kernel for my R-Pi on a fairly beefy 8 core x86 system and have managed to setup a reasonably useable environment on a iMX53 QSB for compiling most other stuff. IIRC that's very similar to what Mike Thompson did for Raspbian

That sounds like a good idea.

I do have distcc set up here in Gentoo, but I've not looked into using it for cross-building yet.  One day.

Oh, the other option would be a couple of hundred Pi setup as a cluster..  Throw lots of cheap processors at the problem and it won't be a problem for long

Of couser the interesting part would be finding enough sockets for all those phone chargers

Morgaine Dinova wrote:

 

selsinork wrote:

 

Pi updates itself automagically

 

My Raspbian doesn't seem to do this, thank goodness.  But I'd like to find out how the automatic update system works, if there really is one in Raspbian somewhere.  What program controls the updates, in theory?  Maybe I was lucky enough that it failed to start.

It seems that my Raspbian does not have it installed.  I tried the instructions on the Hex website but they messed up my whole image.  Is it really necessary to have the firmware updated?