ORxPi update now with RPi2 support

Othernet Software
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ORxPi 0.2.9 and ORxPI2 0.2.9 images are available for download (links at the end of this post).

IMPORTANT: New image is not compatible with previous releases, and there is no upgrade path. This is hopefully a one-time break in backwards compatibility.

This image updates Librarian to 0.4.post9 release (from 0.4.post5), and ORx has finally caught up to Lighthouse in terms of user-facing software.

Changes in the Librarian UI

There has been a few bugfixes between these releases but most notably the updates page is now gone in favor of auomatic import of new updates.

There is also a fully functional cleanup tool in the dashboard for bulk content removal.

Changes in the firmware

Under the hood there have been more significant changes:

  • The partition on which the kernel image resides has been doubled in size to accomodate future updates. Previously, this partition had been a snug fit, and the moment we needed to add some more software, the kernel image could no longer fit. The partition has been resized to 80MB (from 40MB), and this also means you can no longer simply place the kernel image into existing cards to update to this release. Future releases should be fine.
  • Kernel updated to 4.0. This hopefully means better hardware compatibility down the road, though some of the popular WiFi dongles still remain unsupported (Edimax, and similar Realtek-based dongled).
  • Persistent configuration. The partition that was previously available as /opt/orx has now been moved to /mnt/persist to match Lighthouse file system layout. All configuration files are now completely under /etc but some of them are symlinked to /mnt/persist on boot. This includes such files as /etc/group, /etc/shadow, and /etc/hostapd.conf. It is now possible to change the outernet user password, and change hostapd configuration (e.g., change SSID) such that changes persist across reboots.
  • Configuration and log partitions are now ext4. Because of the many issues with reliablity of ext2 partitions, we are now using ext4 for all partitions. So far, we haven’t encountered serious issues with SD cards in our testing.
  • New storage hotplug script. This script has been backported from the next release. While it works more reliably, it still has some issues detailed below.
  • Full support for Raspberry Pi 2. We thank all of you who have patiently waited for this day. :smile:

What happens to content on my old SD card?

Unfortunately, there is no straightfoward method of moving the content to another card without using Linux (or Raspberry Pi with card reader). Easiest solution is to plug in external storage into the Pi, wait for the content to be copied, and then plug the external storage back into the Pi after updating the SD card to 0.2.9 firmware.

If you do not want to use an external storage, please start a new thread here in the forum, and we’ll help you migrate the content.

How do I migrate to Pi2?

The process is similar to migrating content as discussed in the previous section.

Why do you need two images to support both Pi1 and Pi2?

Because these systems use different CPUs, compiling software to run on both CPUs means that it would not be able to take full advantage of the faster CPU in Pi2. We chose to split the builds.

Possible issues

  • Content on the SD card cannot be migrated easily without
  • Storage hotplug may not work correctly if there is a lot of content on the SD card. We are still looking at how to solve this problem. The only known workaround is to either remove content from internal storage, or start with a freshly baked SD card and plug the storage device in before content can accumulate. Pi2 seems to be unaffected by this issue.
  • 500 error page shown when connecting to the Pi’s IP address. This usually means that Librarian hasn’t been fully started yet. In future releases, a more meaningful page would be provided. You will be able to access Librarian after 20~30 seconds. If you are using external storage, you may find that you cannot access Librarain even after waiting for few minutes. This is related to the issue mentioned previously.

Downloads

https://archive.outernet.is/images/ORxPi/0.2.9/
https://archive.outernet.is/images/ORxPi2/0.2.9/

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I upgraded to 0.2.9 today. My old content library on 0.2.8 was on a 16gb flash drive. The upgrade to 0.2.9 seems to have formatted or otherwise erased everything on the flash drive. :\

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Can you plug the flash drive into a computer and verify?

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