HG 1.00 Beta RC493 v 1.1 Beta RC498 How do you update

[petediscrete]

I'm currently running HG 1.00 RC 1.00 on the RPI. There's no reported updates on the version update option on the web API yet I've noticed the latest download version is 1.1 beta 498. I know I can backup the settings on my current version and install the latest version and restore my settings. The questions I have are:

1) Will installing the latest version remove a previous version. If so, will all my other work needed to get the RPI camera, email and other bits and pieces specific to the RPI need to be reinstalled and reconfigured. Quite a bit of work needs to be done to achieve this.

2) Is a fresh install of Raspbian and the latest version of HG the way forward. My experience of updating packages in Linux is quite hit and miss particularly when those packages are outside of the official repositories.

Has the Web API update option now been done away with. Has there been any major changes from 1.0 RC493 to 1.1 RC498.

[bkenobi]

I backed up my settings from 493, installed 498, and restored the backup.  All of my settings were retained.  The only issue I had was when moving back to 493 for testing I had to uninstall HG since the installer recognized that I was trying to write over with an older version.

[petediscrete]

Are you using the RPI camera. Does the new version also retain your Mono settings for email notification and any other settings made not directly related to HG. Are there many changes to HG in the new version. Is it worth updating to the latest version.

[bkenobi]

I don't use a camera.  I've been having an issue with email for several versions but going from 493 to 499 didn't affect that.

[petediscrete]

Was there a particular reason for you upgrading or are you just the type that likes the latest version of everything. I do use the RPI camera module and my main application is x10. The question I'm asking is, is upgrading to the latest version going to improve my experience with HG while trying to maintaining some form of stability.

[bkenobi]

I am working through some configuration issues that updating will hopefully fix.  If you have a configuration that you are happy with and the interface is acceptable to you, I'd recommend staying with your current configuration.  HA systems should be set up and left alone once they are configured correctly IMO.  Unless you are trying to add new capabilities, then it should be left alone.

[petediscrete]

I totally agree about sticking with what works for you. I'm using x10 for over 20 years and while its not cutting edge technology its been around a long time while other technologies have come and gone. Also its cheap as in price compared to others and can be integrated into other solutions.

I've put 1.1 rc498 on to another Raspbian SD card and I'll experiment with it while I retain 1.0 rc493 for stability reasons. Thats the beauty of the RPI. I will say from a personal point of view, if I was developing a HA system from scratch, the RPI or similar embedded system is the way forward.Not much point using an energy management system on a Core i5 or similar running 24/7/365 now is there.

[Gene]

hi petediscrete,

probably there won't be any other updates for HG 1.0. Perhaps just one, that will only pop-up a message introducing to v1.1 and how to manually upgrade to it. HG v1.1 is backward compatible with 1.0 in terms of API and configuration files (not vice-versa).
Though it is still a "pre-release" as it contains a very major code refactoring versus 1.0 and so need to be tested for a while.
The manual update procedure is the following (as you already seem to acknowledge):

- backup your configuration
- uninstall current hg with the command "dpkg --remove homegenie"
- completely remove the old hg folder "sudo rm -rf /usr/local/bin/homegenie"
- install new r499 "sudo gdebi homegenie-beta_1.1.r499_all.deb"
- restore your configuration backup

I don't think you need to reconfigure your work for RPI camera and such as every aspect of HG is "exportable/importable" already since v1.0. The only incompatibility is about MIG Interface plugins (the one you see named as Add-Ons under the settings page).

[petediscrete]

Got that Gene. Thanks.

[petediscrete]

Just to update. Followed Gene's clear and concise steps and am now running 1.1 rc499. System settings restored from 1.0 rc493 and everything working as before including RPI camera, alarm system with email notification so all is good. As an extra precaution I just imaged the SD card purely for convenience.

A little side note on downloading the latest release. The downloaded file was saved in the name of 'download' and not 'homegenie-beta_1.1.rc499'. Caused a little confusion when trying to install it as gdebi reported file not found. Installation done from remote machine using PuTTY.

[bkenobi]

When downloading the installer, I use the wget command which saves the file locally with it's original file name.  I downloaded and installed the new 499 last night and it did not save as "download", so I suspect you used a web client of some sort.