remotely installing new noobs

[internsrus]

I am remotely controlling a raspi using vnc and I see it is still using jessie. Is there any (simple, preferably) way I can upgrade it to be the same OS as in the latest noobs without visiting the site, please?

[allfox]

While you could:

Code: Select all

sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade

I personally against the idea, as if there are something goes wrong, you may end in losting the connection to the server.

If no one could visit the physical location, don't touch the network config.

The colocation provider I used have a service to ask them to re-flash the SD card. Maybe you could ask yours to flash a new card for you.

[B.Goode]

So the question in the text is different to the one in the topic title. Since there is nothing to be gained from changing the version of the NOOBS Installer on a working system you presumably want to move from the running Jessie-based system to one that uses Stretch?

The instructions already provided won't do that: they will just give you an up-to-date version of the OS you are already running.

Instructions for upgrading from Jessie to Stretch are in the Raspberry Pi Foundation blog post that announced the Stretch release. https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/raspbian-stretch/

Look for the section headed How to get Raspbian Stretch

Take careful note of their warning:

As this is a major version upgrade, we recommend using a clean image; these are available from the Downloads page on our site as usual.

Upgrading an existing Jessie image is possible, but is not guaranteed to work in every circumstance. If you wish to try upgrading a Jessie image to Stretch, we strongly recommend taking a backup first – we can accept no responsibility for loss of data from a failed update.

And as a matter of fine detail, upgrading the system does not put you in exactly the position as installing a clean image: some differences remain which can cause confusion during troubleshooting.

If the remote system is fulfilling its purpose as it is, do you really need to risk breaking it?

[internsrus]

Thank you. None of us here are in any way Raspberrypi experts, of necessity we try to learn from one another and from what we see in the forums and internet searches. There has been in the past a repeated stream of advice to do updates and upgrades before anything else, which if we understand you correctly now seems no longer to be what you are currently advising, and which we gladly accept. As it can be almost an all-day task to set up and work at a remoted site, we wanted if possible to update and upgrade without the need for a visit, using our existing facilities and following our records on how to do things and why.

[Heater]

update and upgrade before installing new packages or once in a while is good advice if you ´have the machine on your desk. Keeps you up to date with security fixes and such.

There is always a slim chance that the upgrade will cause something to fail. This has been a very rare occurrence in my using Debian for two decades.

Upgrading to a new major version, Jessie to Stretch for example is rather more risky proposition. Especially when you have major changes to the way networking is configured in Raspbian, for example, as has happened a couple of times.

I have some Pi running at remote locations. I have taken the other tack. SD cards are prone to become corrupted or switch themselves to write-protected mode when subject to random power outages. Or the files system can become corrupted. All of which can prevent the thing booting. So I arrange for the root file system to be mounted read-only thus hopefully preventing that kind of failure.

Of course that means no remote updates for me. Which is a bit of a worry from a security perspective.

Arguably Raspbian is not what one should be using for such remote deployments because of all these issues. A better way would be to use a service like resin.io. https://resin.io/ with resin a very minimal OS is installed on the Pi which will never call for updating. Then your application and all it's dependencies are installed in a "container". This way one can upgrade ones app and dependencies by simply push a new container to the Pi. If anything fails you can roll back to the previous version. If things are going well you can upgrade your software on hundreds of devices in one go with resin.

Resin also removes that issue of spending all day building and configuring an SD card for a new installation.

[B.Goode]

Thank you. None of us here are in any way Raspberrypi experts, of necessity we try to learn from one another and from what we see in the forums and internet searches. There has been in the past a repeated stream of advice to do updates and upgrades before anything else, which if we understand you correctly now seems no longer to be what you are currently advising, and which we gladly accept. As it can be almost an all-day task to set up and work at a remoted site, we wanted if possible to update and upgrade without the need for a visit, using our existing facilities and following our records on how to do things and why.

There is some misunderstanding here.

'Update followed by dist-upgrade' is indeed the recommended way to keep your Operating System up to date. I did not give any advice to the contrary.

But it does not of itself change the underlying major operating system version that your OS is based on.

You state that your OS is currently Jessie. You say you want it

to be the same OS as in the latest noobs

The latest (v2.4.4 at the time of writing) release of the NOOBS Installer comes bundled with a version of Raspbian based on Debian Stretch.

As previously stated, a simple 'update and dist-upgrade' operation will not move your OS from one based on Jessie to one based on Stretch. If that is what you seek to do the documentation is in the provided link to the Raspberry Pi Foundation announcement.

(But to repeat, also take note of the caution the Raspberry Pi Foundation gave about changing the Operating System in this way.)

In summary: keeping your installed Operating System up to date is not the same thing as moving from an 'old' version of the base Operating System to a newer one that has superceded it.

[allfox]

B.Goode is right. I missed the apt source part.

Without editing apt source, you would get an up to date Jessie OS, and if you edited them, you could up to Stretch.

It's risky, so it would be better to have a plan B.

[HawaiianPi]

You are better off staying with Jessie, at least until you can go on-site or support for Jessie ends. There are lots of trouble posts from those who have gone the Jessie-to-Stretch upgrade route, so I would not recommend it for a remote client. Debian Jessie is supported until June of 2020 (full support until June 2018, then security updates after that), so you have some time.

If you really want to upgrade to Stretch I would prepare a new SD card and send it to the location (assuming someone is there to swap cards). That way if something doesn't work they can go back to the old card with minimal downtime.