Upgrade feedback question

[K7ITE]

I got this while trying to do an upgrade via Pi-Star today.
What's this mean in kindergarten language?

After this operation, 10.9 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian buster/main armhf firmware-misc-nonfree all 1:20190114-1+rpt2 [3072 kB]
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (Dialog frontend will not work on a dumb terminal, an emacs shell buffer, or without a controlling terminal.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Readline
debconf: (This frontend requires a controlling tty.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Teletype
dpkg-preconfigure: unable to re-open stdin:

[KE0FHS]

I can't translate this, but I do know that there was a transition point for Raspbian Buster. When it was first released in order to support the release of the RPi 4B, it was while Debian Buster was still in pre-release. When Debian Buster was released shortly after that, Raspbian Buster needed to switch some of its components to the release branch. I remember that one of the updates I ran after that happened went through some weirdness, but I can't remember the specifics.

[AF6VN]

I got this while trying to do an upgrade via Pi-Star today.

Which means what? To me, "Pi-Star" is the entire OS&application suite running on some Raspberry-Pi.

I normally use PuTTY to open a SSH terminal (though I've recently discovered that one of the Window10 updates has installed a native SSH client that can be invoked from any command line window -- see below).

Did you mean you using the "update" link in the Admin dashboard? If so, try from a PuTTY (or other SSH) window. Something may be glitched in how Debian is interpreting the web-page "console". I'm still running 3.4.17, and my attempt using the dashboard "update" appears to have just frozen after one line of output. Invoking "sudo pistar-update" from a SSH session (the PowerShell connection shown below) completes (with just the warnings about old Jessie archives)

debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Dialog
debconf: (Dialog frontend will not work on a dumb terminal, an emacs shell buffer, or without a controlling terminal.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Readline
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Readline
debconf: (This frontend requires a controlling tty.)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Teletype
dpkg-preconfigure: unable to re-open stdin:

All of those indicate that "debconf" is unable to find a valid "terminal"


Windows native SSH client -- normal command shell (My Pi-Star node has a tweaked hostname)

Code: Select all

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.239]
(c) 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\Wulfraed>ssh pi-star@pi-star-3b
The authenticity of host 'pi-star-3b (192.168.1.79)' can't be established.
ECDSA key fingerprint is SHA256:Q9CS8FNTI1e374lPY3N/19YZvjxy0CjTTW1Z9LYbQPc.
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no)? y
Please type 'yes' or 'no': yes
Warning: Permanently added 'pi-star-3b,192.168.1.79' (ECDSA) to the list of known hosts.
pi-star@pi-star-3b's password:
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║                                                                       ║
║           ██████╗ ██╗      ███████╗████████╗ █████╗ ██████╗           ║
║           ██╔══██╗██║      ██╔════╝╚══██╔══╝██╔══██╗██╔══██╗          ║
║           ██████╔╝██║█████╗███████╗   ██║   ███████║██████╔╝          ║
║           ██╔═══╝ ██║╚════╝╚════██║   ██║   ██╔══██║██╔══██╗          ║
║           ██║     ██║      ███████║   ██║   ██║  ██║██║  ██║          ║
║           ╚═╝     ╚═╝      ╚══════╝   ╚═╝   ╚═╝  ╚═╝╚═╝  ╚═╝          ║
║                                                                       ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════v3.4.17═╝
From your Windows Computer:
Pi-Star Dashboard:      http://pi-star-3b/

From your Apple iPhone, iPad, Macbook, iMac etc.
Pi-Star Dashboard:      http://pi-star-3b.local/

Pi-Star's disk is read-only by default, enable read-write with "rpi-rw".
Pi-Star built by Andy Taylor (MW0MWZ), pi-star-3b tools all start "pistar-".

pi-star@pi-star-3b(ro):~$

and Powershell

Code: Select all

Windows PowerShell
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Try the new cross-platform PowerShell https://aka.ms/pscore6

PS C:\Users\Wulfraed> ssh pi-star@pi-star-3b
pi-star@pi-star-3b's password:
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║                                                                       ║
║           ██████╗ ██╗      ███████╗████████╗ █████╗ ██████╗           ║
║           ██╔══██╗██║      ██╔════╝╚══██╔══╝██╔══██╗██╔══██╗          ║
║           ██████╔╝██║█████╗███████╗   ██║   ███████║██████╔╝          ║
║           ██╔═══╝ ██║╚════╝╚════██║   ██║   ██╔══██║██╔══██╗          ║
║           ██║     ██║      ███████║   ██║   ██║  ██║██║  ██║          ║
║           ╚═╝     ╚═╝      ╚══════╝   ╚═╝   ╚═╝  ╚═╝╚═╝  ╚═╝          ║
║                                                                       ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════v3.4.17═╝
From your Windows Computer:
Pi-Star Dashboard:      http://pi-star-3b/

From your Apple iPhone, iPad, Macbook, iMac etc.
Pi-Star Dashboard:      http://pi-star-3b.local/

Pi-Star's disk is read-only by default, enable read-write with "rpi-rw".
Pi-Star built by Andy Taylor (MW0MWZ), pi-star-3b tools all start "pistar-".

pi-star@pi-star-3b(ro):~$

I'll stick to using PuTTY as I have it configured to capture sessions in log files.

[KE0FHS]

I got this while trying to do an upgrade via Pi-Star today.

Which means what? To me, "Pi-Star" is the entire OS&application suite running on some Raspberry-Pi.

Your question is valid because people often confuse Pi-Star Updates and Upgrades, but you wouldn't get a Buster-related message from 3.4.17. Pi-Star didn't incorporate Buster until 4.1.x.

I've been having a bit of trouble with my 4.1.0-RC3 hotspots (one RPi 4B and one RPi 3A+) connecting to my WiFi, so I've mainly been using a hotspot that is still on 4.0.x, at least until Andy starts working on 4.1.x again. But just now I ran a Pi-Star Update via SSH (I use Termius, which is similar to PuTTY, but I find it a bit more user friendly). I received only one warning:

The following package was automatically installed and is no longer required:
rpi.gpio-common
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove it.

And there were some package upgrades:

The following packages will be upgraded:
libraspberrypi-bin libraspberrypi-dev libraspberrypi0 python-rpi.gpio
raspberrypi-bootloader raspberrypi-kernel raspberrypi-sys-mods
7 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

I didn't have any trouble other than the Update ending with that old issue:

mount: /: mount point is busy.

By the way, I went ahead and ran sudo apt autoremove, and everything seems to be fine.