Raspberry Pi_Eng_17.8 Upgrade of System Kernel and Firmware


Published Book on Amazon


All of IOT Starting with the Latest Raspberry Pi from Beginner to Advanced – Volume 1
All of IOT Starting with the Latest Raspberry Pi from Beginner to Advanced – Volume 2

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최신 라즈베리파이(Raspberry Pi)로 시작하는 사물인터넷(IOT)의 모든 것 – 초보에서 고급까지 (상)
최신 라즈베리파이(Raspberry Pi)로 시작하는 사물인터넷(IOT)의 모든 것 – 초보에서 고급까지 (하)

Original Book Contents


17.8   Upgrade of System Kernel and Firmware

 

The kernel and firmware of the Raspberry Pi system are continuously being upgraded to fix errors, improve system performance, and provide additional functionality. If a certain period of time has elapsed since the installation of the Raspberry Pi system, the currently installed system may be different from the system of the latest version. Also, if a specific application is developed based on the latest version of the system, it may cause an error if the program is used on the system of the previous version. Therefore, it is sometimes necessary to upgrade the kernel and firmware.

 

The "rpi-update" command is used for this purpose.

 

[Command Format]

[option] rpi-update

 

[Command Overview]

   This upgrades the firmware of the Raspberry Pi.

   User privilege          -- Super user.

 

[Detail Description]

   When the command is executed, the system should be rebooted.

 

[Main Option]

UPDATE_SELF

By default, rpi-update will attempt to update itself each time it is run. You can disable this behavior by:

SKIP_BACKUP

Set it equal to a non-zero value and it will avoids making backup of /boot and /lib/modules on first run.

PRUNE_MODULES

Allows you to delete unused module directories when doing an update. Set it equal to a non-zero value and it will remove all modules except the latest installed:

 

[Used Example]

The following is an example of upgrading the firmware.

 

pi@raspberrypi ~ $ sudo rpi-update

*** Raspberry Pi firmware updater by Hexxeh, enhanced by AndrewS and Dom

 *** Performing self-update

  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current

                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed

100  9823  100  9823    0     0   6924      0  0:00:01  0:00:01 --:--:--  9364

 *** Relaunching after update

 *** Raspberry Pi firmware updater by Hexxeh, enhanced by AndrewS and Dom

 *** We're running for the first time

 *** Backing up files (this will take a few minutes)

 *** Remove old firmware backup

 *** Backing up firmware

 *** Remove old modules backup

 *** Backing up modules 3.18.7+

 *** Downloading specific firmware revision (this will take a few minutes)

  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current

                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed

100   168    0   168    0     0    184      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--   243

100 46.1M  100 46.1M    0     0   330k      0  0:02:22  0:02:22 --:--:--  180k

 *** Updating firmware

 *** Updating kernel modules

 *** depmod 3.18.13+

 *** depmod 3.18.13-v7+

 *** Updating VideoCore libraries

 *** Using HardFP libraries

 *** Updating SDK

 *** Running ldconfig

 *** Storing current firmware revision

 *** Deleting downloaded files

 *** Syncing changes to disk

 *** If no errors appeared, your firmware was successfully updated to 8521fd34c8f66b6d109acce943f6e25ec93ec005

 *** A reboot is needed to activate the new firmware