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

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?

I rummaged around a bit but couldn't find any kind of automatic update system installed in the usual places, not even after an apt-get update and upgrade.  And although the Raspbian site claims that the distro comes with the rpi-update script now, that seems to be incorrect as well.

I grabbed rpi-update from Hexxeh's repo and ran it manually, which was successful.  It doesn't seem to have improved anything though, as all the USB and networking problems remain, and there doesn't appear to be any improvement in codecs either.

Whatever the update updated isn't something that I'm using, apparently.  And the kernel remains at 3.1.9+, bleh.

And the kernel remains at 3.1.9+, bleh.

It's quite disappointing that they seem to be stuck at 3.1.9 no matter what. Especially as there are better alternatives available.

selsinork wrote:

 

And the kernel remains at 3.1.9+, bleh.

It's quite disappointing that they seem to be stuck at 3.1.9 no matter what. Especially as there are better alternatives available.

So, it is not required.  Thank you.

Perhaps I was being a little misleading when I said updated automagically. What I should have said was:

I beleive that that firmware updates are in the distro repository now so that a $ Sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade will do all that is expected including the fimware if there is a newer version.

Of course no one on Linux HAS to do any upgrades or updates. So its totally free choice. But I have to admit that I was happy to do the upgrade and then not need to do that Hexxeh bit after as well.(one thing less to forget)

All your needs may differ. Indeed this process may differ in time. Probably already has knowing my luck.

Have fun all

Ray

One big disappointment after all the upgrades though was the fact that media still barely works.

Wasn't media supposed to be the best part of Raspberry Pi, because the BCM2835 is basically just one huge media and DSP processor with a tiny old ARM core tucked in one corner?  Well that would be great if the media stuff worked well, but even after these latest upgrades omxplayer is still the only player that will play videos with hardware acceleration.  Unfortunately it can play only a single type of video format, and even that jitters at 1080p.

And we can't even fix this poor state of affairs, because the media side of Pi is closed source.

This is a really disappointing situation.

Morgaine.

One big disappointment after all the upgrades though was the fact that media still barely works.

Wasn't media supposed to be the best part of Raspberry Pi, because the BCM2835 is basically just one huge media and DSP processor with a tiny old ARM core tucked in one corner?  Well that would be great if the media stuff worked well, but even after these latest upgrades omxplayer is still the only player that will play videos with hardware acceleration.  Unfortunately it can play only a single type of video format, and even that jitters at 1080p.

And we can't even fix this poor state of affairs, because the media side of Pi is closed source.

This is a really disappointing situation.

Morgaine.