My apologies if my question is silly, but I’m a real noob to this and did try finding the answers myself first. So either my question is too simple for this forum or I am missing something.
I live in Ethiopia and have no internet at home. My best connection is at my office. I have my Raspberry Pi 3 setup at home with OSMC that is use as my media center to watch movies and TV Shows. There are two things I would like to update from time to time and that’s the OS and film/tv show library data. Maybe even add an app once in a while. If I want to update my OSMC I have to bring my Raspberry Pi to work, hook it up to a screen and peripherals and run updates. This is not something I should be seen doing once a month in my office.
So my question is this, can I download the monthly update separately and copy it to my SD for OSMC to detect and update? I obviously want to make sure all my settings and viewing history remain the same. Or is there a way to just take my SD card to work, plug it in to my laptop and run a virtual version of my Raspberry Pi 3 on my laptop to do an update. If that even makes sense. I suppose a 3rd option would be to be able to hook my Raspberry Pi up to my laptop at work and view and control it from my laptop somehow?
Maybe I am overthinking this, so any advice or nudge in the right direction would be much apreciated.
Ok downloading the monthly updates would not really be possible as it would mean that you would need download the complete repositories and then run your own repository server at home.
So only option would be to connect the Pi to the network in the office (but avoid the trouble of screen and keyboard and access it via ssh or vnc to install the updates
Thank for your quick reply and saving me from trying to find the offline update answer. I will look in to these ssh and vpn options. I’m sure I can make that work.
SSH should easily work if you have chosen so during install or you can add ssh server from App Store.
For VNC (not VPN) search the forum for “vnc server”
apt-offline can fully update and upgrade an APT based distribution without connecting to the network, all of it transparent to APT.
apt-offline can be used to generate a signature on a machine (with no network). This signature contains all download information required for the APT database system. This signature file can be used on another machine connected to the internet (which need not be a Debian box and can even be running windows) to download the updates. The downloaded data will contain all updates in a format understood by APT and this data can be used by apt-offline to update the non-networked machine.
Interesting, wasn’t aware of it might be worth a try. But that would then only be the Debian/OSMC part and not Kodi addons which then manually as zip files need to be updated
apt-offline is possible, but it is a pain in the ass its way better to connect the rpi to 4g modem or a hotspot on phone and update that is way more easier
One other point worth noting from the OP’s first post [quote=“Shjaarwle, post:1, topic:37983”]
If I want to update my OSMC I have to bring my Raspberry Pi to work, hook it up to a screen and peripherals and run updates. This is not something I should be seen doing once a month in my office.
[/quote]
Generally, these things can be a pain to set up at the beginning but once it’s up and running and you’re over the initial learning curve, it’s plain sailing from then on.
apt-offline perfectly fits this requirement (for Debian/OSMC updates).
Yeah to be honest I think the VNC option is not a bad idea. That way I can have full control over what I want to update and only bring in my Raspberry Pi and hook it up with a power supply.
Thanks for all the inputs though. I guess this wasn’t such a silly question after all
So I have managed to get VNC working! First time using PuTTY etc, so was really proud of myself haha.
I set it up with a fixed IP at my office an managed to connect to it. The connection is slow and drops out sometimes, but is good enough to leave it doing its updates and occasionally check in. The good thing is that I can just put it in a corner of my office and subtly check on my computer from time to time to monitor the progress.
