Installing and Updating

First installation

1. Download the zip of the latest version available at the top of the Releases section, under the Code tab
2. Unpack the zip to a temporary location
3. Write the .img file to your SD card, for example with Win32DiskImager (on Windows)
4. Insert the SD card into your Pi

Thats it.

Updating your installation

Note: Don't remove the USB stick during the whole flash process until system is up in normal mode again!

Two methods are available:

1. Manually flash the full image, erasing your existing configuration. Not the best solution ...
2. Upgrade via USB stick, the recommended way to preserve your general system setup

Upgrade via USB stick

1. Place the downloaded zip on a USB stick (must be FAT32, EXT3, or EXT4 formatted and mininum 2GB)
2. Power off your system
3. Plug in your stick
4. Power on
5. During startup the USB stick which is containing your zip (or .img and the .md5) will be detected
6. If flash file is a zip it will be unpacked to the USB stick
7. Now the system is preparing the flash mode and backing up default config files. When finished, it will reboot into flash mode
8. The system starts now to flash the sd card
9. After successfull flash the config.txt and crankshaft_env.sh will be ensure your display is working again if custom settings are needed for your display
10. System is rebooting again in normal mode
11. During first boot some intial setup processes are run, including resizing your SD card
12. After initial setup your backup is restored from USB stick
13. Now all is done and your system will boot normally with the new software version
14. The USB stick is no longer needed and can be removed

Please note:

The system will flash every version different from the current installed - there is no lock for up or downgrading. But if you switch back to older versions there is no guarantee that all will work fine.

Files backed up during flash:

/boot/config.txt
/boot/crankshaft/crankshaft_env.sh
/boot/crankshaft/custom/
/boot/crankshaft/gpio2kbd.cfg
/boot/crankshaft/startup.py
/boot/crankshaft/startup.sh
/boot/crankshaft/triggerhappy.conf
/boot/crankshaft/brightness
/boot/crankshaft/brightness-night
/boot/crankshaft/volume
/boot/crankshaft/capvolume
/boot/crankshaft/openauto.ini
/boot/crankshaft/wallpaper.png
/boot/crankshaft/wallpaper-night.png
/boot/crankshaft/wallpaper-devmode.png
/boot/crankshaft/wallpaper-devmode-night.png
/etc/timezone
/etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-calibration.conf
/etc/pulse/client.conf

Flash same version again

If you have any reason to flash the same version again (perhaps a damaged system) you can create a file called FORCE_FLASH on your USB stick alongside the update files. The flash mode will now ignore the version check and flash it.