Release notes: UBOS Linux update 2020-09-26

To upgrade

To be safe, first create a backup of all your sites, with a command such as:

• sudo ubos-admin backup --all --backuptodirectory ~

Then, update your device:

• sudo ubos-admin update -v

What’s new

New features

• ubos-install has largely been rewritten, for more options and easier extensibility in the future. It is now also able to handle a larger variety of external flash disks and controllers and won’t fail if the disk controller reports a “strange” geometry.
• ubos-install now will refuse to start if it does not appear an internet connection is available, and downloading of UBOS packages would fail.
• The device class odroid-xu3 enables UBOS to run on ODROID devices XU3, XU4, as well as HC1 and HC2.
• On a Raspberry Pi 4, UBOS can now boot directly from an external USB disk. This means SD cards are not needed any more for UBOS on the Pi 4, which translates into faster speeds and higher reliability. (Depending on the version of the boot loader that your Pi 4 has, you may need to temporarily use an SD card to upgrade the bootloader, but that is a one-time operation.)
• Logging on as the root user now requires a password. More details.

Notable new packages:

• Package rpi-eeprom lets you update your Raspberry Pi 4’s bootloader, so you can boot entirely without SD card from a USB stick or disk. More details.
• Package pi-bluetooth are Bluetooth drivers for the Raspberry Pi 3.
• Package ntfs-3g for mounting NTFS disks

Package upgrades:

Over 700 packages were upgraded.

Bug fixes

The usual: fixed bugs and made improvements. You can find the closed issues on Github tagged with milestone ubos-23.

Known problems

Note: You may receive a message that says “Failed to refresh some expired keys”. This is harmless and you can ignore it. As part of this update, we have switched to different key servers that are less likely to have this problem.