When upgrading PiAware, using the Upgrade and restart PiAware command is all that’s needed correct? It will auto upgrade dump1090 if it’s needed?
Gotcha. So run those commands as well?
I would first upgrade dump1090
If you have a 978 receiver as well then do that one as a second step.
Final step upgrade piaware.
Piaware is dependant on dump1090/978 so that should be done as the last one.
Or ssh into the raspberry pi and give the command
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
To do all the installed packages at once 
1 Like
I did a little homework into this; the ‘Upgrade and Restart PiAware’ does actually upgrade dump1090 and dump978 as well. So if you just want to do a simple upgrade, that’ll do the trick; you don’t need to run the ‘Upgrade dump1090’ or ‘Upgrade dump978’ commands separately.
What it doesn’t do is upgrade to the latest Raspbian Core OS packages, e.g. the latest SSH. To do that you need to do what @tomvdhorst is suggesting, and go into the command line and run sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
Not 100% clear to me if you absolutely have to run the core OS upgrades; as a former sysadmin I’d generally lean toward doing it because it will inevitably include security patches, etc. But your PiAware is probably behind your home firewall and not exposed to the public internet, so just doing the ‘Upgrade and Restart PiAware’ command is likely good enough.
I always advise to do the apt update and apt upgrade path due to the underlying dependencies of piaware and dump1090-fa.On installation they will need some additional software and by executing these 2 commands you are sure all packages are up to date.
I’m not picking on you, but I am using your example to highlight something. I see this one suggested all of the time, and I never (and would never) run this command. And I would never recommend it to a newbie.
And if you are a newbie, you should never blindly copy/paste a command from a stranger on the internet - especially if it starts with ``sudo``.
If you are working at a command prompt, you should fully understand why you are running that command, and what it is expected to do - before you press enter.
This particular command is relatively harmless, but I still don’t run it this way. Why? What is it doing?
sudo - "run this command with "super user" powers" - the guardrails are now off and a wrong command can completely bork the system. Always use this command with care and intention.
apt update - this part is relatively benign - "apt" is short for "aptitude" which is the name of the software management application in Debian-based linux systems. This command tells aptitude to query each server defined in its "sources" lists, and update the local database with current version information for installed apps. It will also report how many programs or utilities have updates available. Note that I say "relatively benign" because it is possible to trick you into adding sources from bad actors, which could then install malware.
&& - this is a "concatenator". It can make things convenient by allowing you to string multiple separate commands together into one longer command. In this case, the two ampersands together mean "immediately run the command that follows, as long as the previous command completes without error". It's fine (ish) in this case, apart from the fact that it could cause informational messages or non-fail errors to scroll off screen before you are able to read them. It can also be useful for 'hiding' a dangerous command inside of a longer benign command string.
sudo apt upgrade - here's that 'sudo' super-user command again. This time we are telling the package manager to install any updates that were identified in the previous command. Again - probably fine in this instance, but maybe you don't necessarily want to upgrade **every** app at this time.
-y - this is the part that is especially problematic for me. These last two characters say to respond with "yes" to any prompt from the preceding command. No user input will be requested or allowed.
So, put all together, this command says “with administrator permissions, tell the package manager to update its database from all servers that it recognizes. If that process doesn’t fail, then use super user privileges again to tell the package manager to upgrade every application that has an update available - and if the upgrade process asks any questions, answer "‘yes’ to all of them.
Maybe I’m a ‘belt and suspenders’ guy, but when I do updates, it’s
sudo apt update
When that completes,
sudo apt upgrade
That second command lists the packages that will be updated, along with those that have updates available but won’t be updating (and why), and asks me to press ‘y’ to continue.
All of that to say, if some stranger on the internet says to just run
sudo blah blah blah
To solve whatever problem you are experiencing, know what that command does (or is supposed to do) before running it. If it doesn’t make sense or is outside of your knowledge, google the whole command before running it on your system.
It’ll probably be fine. Until it’s not.
3 Likes
Or has sudo towards the end.
Plenty of people running commands of the form:
wget -qO - http://dont.worry/somerandomscript.sh | sudo bash
without looking at what the script is doing.
As always, it’s a difficult decision on what scripts to trust for those who don’t understand what the script actually does,
Yes! I meant to mention to be especially wary of any command that includes “curl” or '“wget”.
1 Like
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.