New Retropie 4.6 image for Raspberry Pi 3B - how to upgrade in full ?

SingingCoyote13

I ve seen the new image Retropie 4.6 is released. This image works (or is targetted) on Buster instead of Stretch. now i know how to upgrade retropie itself from within retropie-setup and update all (or from within the packages section of the setup menu). However, i assume i must update the underlaying linux distro too. so how do i update from stretch to buster on a RaspberryPi 3B ? (i assume by command line)

mitu

@SingingCoyote13 said in New Retropie 4.6 image for Raspberry Pi 3B - how to upgrade in full ?:

so how do i update from stretch to buster on a RaspberryPi 3B ? (i assume by command It'line)

It's not recommended, you should install from scratch using the new image and transfer your configuration/roms to it.

windg

i think Rasbian Buster needs a bigger boot partition than Rasbian Stretch.

mitu

@windg Yes, that's one of the reasons.

Before Raspbian Buster, the Raspbian images had a 57M boot partition, the new images (based on Buster) have a much larger partition - 256M.

mahoneyt944

@mitu
So just copy the contents of config / rom folder and then replace the new images respective folders with your copies?

matchaman

@mahoneyt944 pretty much. Backup your themes and /home/pi/RetroPie/roms directories. It's not really a pain if your previous setup was properly organised.

mitu

@mahoneyt944 Basically yes, but don't forget about

BIOS files
custom splashscreens (if any)

toto2000

... and emulators.cfg in /opt/retropie/config/all !

mitu

There was a topic from 2 years ago, with the upgrade from Jessie to Strech, but can't find it now. Quite similar situation.

EDIT: @Darksavior found it - link below.

Darksavior

@mitu https://retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/16866/migrating-a-working-retropie-setup-to-the-new-stretch-image

Spectreman

I ended upgrading from 4.5 to 4.6 without knowing, while messing around with the Retropie update menu. Don´t know if broke anything else, but the Retropie will always ask for login in the rebooting. Solution:

Sano 19 Jul 2018, 14:19
@BuZz This reminds me of something reported here a few months ago... Too bad they didn't take your case into account.

Here is the simpliest way to fix this:

at command prompt, type sudo raspi-config
select option 3 in menu (Boot Options)
select option B1 (Desktopp/CLI)
select option B2 (Console Autologin)
Then Ok, exit all the way and restart.

mitu

@Spectreman said in New Retropie 4.6 image for Raspberry Pi 3B - how to upgrade in full ?:

I ended upgrading from 4.5 to 4.6 without knowing, while messing around with the Retropie update menu

That's normal, but your OS didn't get updated, you didn't upgrade from Stretch to Buster just using RetroPie's update.

Spectreman

@mitu said in New Retropie 4.6 image for Raspberry Pi 3B - how to upgrade in full ?:

@Spectreman said in New Retropie 4.6 image for Raspberry Pi 3B - how to upgrade in full ?:

I ended upgrading from 4.5 to 4.6 without knowing, while messing around with the Retropie update menu

That's normal, but your OS didn't get updated, you didn't upgrade from Stretch to Buster just using RetroPie's update.

The system shows 4.6. What features I am missing without a new install?

mitu

@Spectreman said in New Retropie 4.6 image for Raspberry Pi 3B - how to upgrade in full ?:

The system shows 4.6. What features I am missing without a new install?

You're not missing any features for now - both existing installs and new installs will get the same software. However, the support for your OS will be phased out in time. From the announcement:

For RetroPie 4.6 we have moved to Raspbian Buster as a base for our pre-built Raspberry Pi images. Raspbian Stretch is no longer supported by Raspberry Pi Trading Ltd. We will continue to support Stretch for a while longer, but will likely stop updating binaries for it later this year.

mahoneyt944

Just did a new install to buster, back up and running.! Thanks.

wmarcio

Better than making a backup only of the folders, is to make a complete image of the microsd card, so you have a backup of a functional system, with roms, bios and all the settings, then you format the microsd card and write the new one Retropie image, to restore your data, you record a pendrive with any Linux live distribution (I recommend Lubuntu), assemble the image you created before and copy everything you need. Thus, in addition to a functioning system that can be restored at any time, you have all of its original configuration.

It's just a suggestion...

niculinux

Since retropie is based on debian, may be also enough to edit (with root permissions) the file

/etc/apt/sources.list

and replace the "stretch" entries with "buster", like stated here?

SingingCoyote13

you know what i did. i just did a fresh install - retropie 4.6 image. thanks for all the info and help, but a fresh install isnt that hard, it takes a couple of hours and then everything is working fine. also, the time and effort needed to upgrade the whole lot with all side complications possible - and having to resolve them -, that would perhaps take longer than just simply imaging the whole sd card to a disk image (.img) then flash it with retropie 4.6 and then mount the .img and return the whole lot to its folders.