Hello everyone. I changed from RP OS to DietPi . I have 3 questions.
1-Where is the setting to enable DietPi system to auto update itself?
2-When I setup my raspberry pi, I used to login via ssh by using pi@(ip address) . Now on DietPi there is “root@…” or “dietpi@…”, which one should I use to login? and how can i change it to create like the old one “pi” ?
3-On RP OS when I login I had a home directory that I can create files in and I can list it by using the “ls” command. When I type “ls” on DietPi nothing happens!? Is there a home directory for the user?
I am not aware of any automatic update, which would not be a very good idea anyway. Upon login you are getting a notification if there are available updates and how to upgrade.
For unprivileged user, login with dietpi. Use sudo when you need to do something with elevated privileges. You can create a new user with adduser command
Sure there is, /home/dietpi , but it is empty by default, hence ls doesn’t return anything. Try with ls -la to see the hidden files as well.
just to avoid a misunderstanding right from the beginning. DietPi is not an own OS, it’s a set of scripts on top of a base image. In your case, base image is Raspberry OS. Means you are running an extrem slim/diet version of Raspberry OS with some scripting on top. Thinks are working on native Raspberry OS, should work nearly same on DietPi.
Back to your question:
There are basically 2 parts to keep your system updated. Parameters can be found at /boot/dietpi.txt
apt package updated
with DietPi v6.34.3 we introduced a feature to automatically check and update apt packages. This will update all packages that are installed/manged by apt. By default, availability of apt updates will be checked only and user get a notification on login screen.
# Daily check for APT package updates: 0=disable | 1=check only | 2=check and upgrade automatically
# - Upgrade logs can be found at: /var/tmp/dietpi/logs/dietpi-update_apt.log
CONFIG_CHECK_APT_UPDATES=1
DietPi scrip updated
By default, DietPi will check once a day for the availability of DietPi script updates and user get a notification on login screen.
# Daily check for DietPi updates: 0=disable | 1=enable
# - Checks are done by downloading a file of only 7 bytes.
CONFIG_CHECK_DIETPI_UPDATES=1
basically it’s the DietPi version of unattended-upgrades but more lightweight. It will looks like this on login screen. Next to the DietPi version, you will have the information about apt packages updates being available
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
DietPi v6.34.3 : 13 APT updates available
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
- Device model : RPi 4 Model B (armv7l)
- Uptime : up 1 week, 6 days, 14 hours, 39 minutes
- CPU temp : 39'C : 102'F (Cool runnings)
- LAN IP : 192.168.0.11 (eth0)
- Info Text : !!! PRODUCTION SYSTEM !!!
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────
using apt list --upgradable will display packages being available
as explained above, there are 2 areas that would need to be updated. First one would be apt packages. This one could set to have it automatically updated. The other one would be DietPi scripts. For this, a user interaction would be needed to start the update process.
is it possible to implement a feature that auto updates everything. I kind of want it to manage itself without me interfering with it.
thanks for your time
If you ask me it is a bad idea to auto-update.
You should be aware of what is updated, in case something is broken. Imagine if one update is not compatible with the configuration you have and the server never restarts. Or if the upgrade never completes due to some error and you are resting assured that everything is fine.
I understand that it is way more convenient like this, but once it happens to you you’ll also reconsider the time wasted troubleshooting from zero.
We even had the option to enable automatic DietPi script updates for a while, but I removed it, since we use updates also to inform users about important changes, allow them to do decision and do software reinstalls in case of breaking changes have been done to our implementation. This should hence be done interactively.
For APT package upgrades it’s usually safe to apply them automatically as long as your on the stable or oldstable Debian suite (Stretch or Buster). But it’s still the first or second most reason to cause support requests/issues on our GitHub, e.g. when service restarts are triggered and then any of various related or untrusted reasons the service start fails. But if an e.g. night service downtime does not being you into trouble, it should be fine. Logs are stored persistently as mentioned in dietpi.txt.
This reminds me to add those options to the dietpi-update UI.
Sorry guys to bother you but I am getting a new pi zero w and wondering if I should use 64bit which says still beta or the 32-bit. I use it to run pihole. Does it even matter?
