Pi Desktop : how to upgrade to new raspbian (buster)

pcardona  After looking at the following article, I just decided to flash my SD card with a new image of Buster.  The link below does walk you through the process.

https://pimylifeup.com/upgrade-raspbian-stretch-to-raspbian-buster/

I also had an issue booting an RPi3.  I thought it was dead.  A clean install of the latest Raspbian Buster (not NOOBS) miraculously healed it.

What is pidesktop operating system?

Is it a customized Raspbian?

What is the support infrastructure behind the venture? (i.e. operating system upgrade)

Hi Sean,

- The kernel : uname -a says :

Linux raspberrypi 4.19.66-v7+ #1253 SMP Thu Aug 15 11:49:46 BST 2019 armv7l GNU/Linux

- My OS :

/etc/issue says :

Raspbian GNU/Linux 9

/etc/debian_version says :

9.11

colporteur  I have been really tempted to buy one of these things.  As I read it, the Raspberry Pi Desktop would be an image with the interface to the real time clock circuit and safe shutdown circuit already added.  I do not believe that there is much more customization of the Raspbian from there, but I could be wrong.

Hi Mike,

I was able to upgrade the OS according to your link. So I have this installation now :

- Kernel : Linux raspberrypi 4.19.97-v7+ #1294 SMP Thu Jan 30 13:15:58 GMT 2020 armv7l GNU/Linux

- OS : Raspbian GNU/Linux 10 (/etc/issue) / 10.4 (/etc/debian_version) : i.e. Buster, YES !

And The system is booting well now, so maybe I was missing a step the previous time I tried this upgrade. Thank You again the the good link.

But there is as specific issue :

This issue is concerning the ad hoc debian package pidesktop-base : the installation failed with this error message :

Préparation du dépaquetage de pidesktop-base-1.1.0.deb ...

Dépaquetage de pidesktop-base (1.0.0) sur (1.0.0) ...

Paramétrage de pidesktop-base (1.0.0) ...

Failed to enable unit: Unit file embest-shutdown.service does not exist.

Failed to enable unit: Unit file embest.service does not exist

If I understand well, this package needed a deprecated service 'embest' : I will see on the concerned github repository to see if this issue is reported.

Well, I will tell You about this issue soon.

Well, I forgot to unsinstall the pidesktop first, so I resolved the issue simply like this :

1. Uninstall  first :
   sudo dpkg -r pidestop-base
2. Install again and the job is done:
   sudo dpkg -i pidestop-base-1.1.0.deb

pcardona  EXCELLENT!  Great job.  Also, welcome to the Element14 community.

I'm no doubt not seeing the big picture. I have been frustrated in the past aligning with themed O/S to have the support team fracture. I tend to shy away from flavours that are not mainstream.

So if you had one of these kits, I assume there is nothing that  prevents you from grabbing a Raspbian buster image from the .org repository and after completing an install adding the tweaks for the RTC and shutdown circuit?

colporteur  You are spot on!  One could add these themselves or even create a script to do the install.  I like the idea of adding them myself because (to me) that's part of the magic of the Pi.  I'm not just adding application programs.  I'm adding functionality.  Okay, they might be the same thing, but not in my mind.

Hi Mike,

I seems that the reboot process has changed between the Stretch and the Buster : the fact is that the pi-desktop package provided no more supports this functionnality. As I can understand, after a try to boot again, the system is shutting down, which is not the expected behaviour. Well, we do not need this functionnality all the time, but I like to understand why things stop to work.

You said You wrote your own scripts to do this. Could You share your knowledge to help us to understand this process within Buster and the pi-desktop ?

pcardona Forgive me for being unclear.  I have not written a script.  There are folks in the Community that are smart enough to do this.  I am not one of them.

I prefer to install the features one at a time.  I keep a notebook of the programs I like to add but - in truth - each SD card gets regularly reformatted and reflashed.  Only one of mi Pi's has a dedicated purpose.  It runs an MMDVM hotspot.  All of the others are subject to being reset to a fresh install of Raspbian.

pcardona Forgive me for being unclear.  I have not written a script.  There are folks in the Community that are smart enough to do this.  I am not one of them.

I prefer to install the features one at a time.  I keep a notebook of the programs I like to add but - in truth - each SD card gets regularly reformatted and reflashed.  Only one of mi Pi's has a dedicated purpose.  It runs an MMDVM hotspot.  All of the others are subject to being reset to a fresh install of Raspbian.