Upgrade Raspbian Stretch to Buster

Check your current OS version:

uname -a

cat /etc/debian_version

Prepare

Get up to date.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Verify nothing is wrong. Verify no errors are reported after each command. Fix as required (you’re on your own here!).

dpkg -C
apt-mark showhold

Optionally upgrade the firmware.

sudo rpi-update  

Prepare apt-get

Update the sources to apt-get. This replaces “stretch” with “buster” in the repository locations giving apt-get access to the new version’s binaries.

sudo sed -i 's/stretch/buster/g’ /etc/apt/sources.list    
sudo sed -i 's/stretch/buster/g’  /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list 

Verify this caught them all. Run the following, expecting no output. If the command returns anything having previously run the sed commands above, it means more files may need tweaking. Run the sed command for each.

grep -lnr stretch /etc/apt  

Speed up subsequent steps by removing the list change package.

sudo apt-get remove apt-listchanges

Do the Upgrade

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade -y
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y

cleanup old outdate packages.

sudo apt-get autoremove -y && sudo apt-get autoclean

Verify with:

cat /etc/os-release.

Update Firmware

You have come this far, might as well get the latest firmware:

sudo rpi-update    

Have fun with your new updated Pi! 😉

Installing Ride on Pi Zero

Installing Ride v1.7.4 on Raspberry Pi Zero with Raspbian is a Challenge, especially during preperation and installation of wxPython for pi Zero

Base setup from pi Zero:

  • Rasbian buster lite
  • python 3.7x

Do SW update before installing :

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt get dist-upgrade

Do Install pip3 for my pi zero:

sudo apt-get install python3-pip

Prepare installation before installing wxPython on pi Zero:

sudo apt-get install dpkg-dev build-essential swig python-dev libwebkit-dev libjpeg-dev libtiff-dev checkinstall freeglut3 freeglut3-dev libgtk2.0-dev  libsdl1.2-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base0.10-dev libgstreamer0.10-dev libgconf2-dev libglapi-mesa libosmesa6 libglu1-mesa-dev libglu1-mesa mesa-common-dev
sudo apt-get install build-essential tk-dev libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev libreadline6-dev libdb5.3-dev libgdbm-dev libsqlite3-dev libssl-dev libbz2-dev libexpat1-dev liblzma-dev zlib1g-dev
sudo apt-get install python3.7-dev
sudo apt-get install python-wxgtk2.8 python-wxtools wx2.8-i18n libwxgtk2.8-dev libgtk2.0-dev

sudo apt-get install gtk+-3.0 gtk+3.0-dev
sudo pip3 install pathlib2

Now install wxPython, it can take long (+/- 24 Hours) by pi Zero!

sudo pip3 install wxPython

If it’t passed you can install Ride !

sudo pip3 install --upgrade robotframework-ride

You can start the Ride now as remote sessions:

Ride.py &