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Upgrade Your PiStorms Software - Tutorial

Upgrade Your PiStorms Software - Tutorial

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We here at mindsensors.com are constantly adding new features to the PiStorms software. Since the release of this nifty device we have added a Scratch interface, support for lots of sensors, optimized the sensor reads, etc. You can upgrade your PiStorms software to the latest version with a few quick, easy steps.

 

If you are using PiStorms software version 4.003 or later, an Exclamation icon appears on top right when new release of software is available for download.

For the exclamation icon to appear, power on PiStorms and leave it on for some time while connected to internet.

PiStorms with Exclamation icon

Simply click on this icon to upgrade.

upgrade dialog

A upgrade dialog box will appear, select 'Yes' to continue installation.

(Choosing 'Later' will defer the exclamation icon for about 8 hours).

 

If you are using software older than 4.03, you will need to follow these steps:

What you will need

 

You will need 8 GB SD card for your Pi. (more than 8 GB is ok too).

Start your Raspberry Pi and login to your Pi as user 'pi'.

Run raspi-config and 'expand the file system'

Configure your Pi to connect to Internet (using wired ethernet or wifi)

 

Upgrading

 

Open a browser on your computer and visit following url:

/largefiles/updater/

find the latest release of software from this page and make a note of the filename.

Login to your Pi and issue command:

 

cd /home/pi
wget /largefiles/updater/<fileName>

 

This will download the latest release on your Pi.

unzip the release file, and install as follows:

 

tar -zxvf fileName
cd /home/pi/PiStorms/setup
chmod +x setup.sh
./setup.sh

 

It will take a few minutes to install/upgrade the software.

Restart your Pi upon completion.

 

FAQ

 

Why are some of my programs not showing up in the PiStorms Browser (menu)?

The upgrade procedure backs up your old software in folder '/home/pi/PiStorms.01' (or '/home/pi/PiStorms.02' ...).

If you need your older programs, you will have to copy them over manually from backup folder.

  

Troubleshooting image for PiStorms.

In case needed, to troubleshoot PiStorms, we recommend installing a clean troubleshooting image on a SD card.

Follow these steps to create your SD card.

Comments (4)

Chen Z 05.25.2017
I ran the sudo apt-upgrade and upgrade to Rasbian 8 by accident and uname -a tells me I am now running Linux PiStorms01 4.9.24-v7+ after I ran the above commands. However, the initial PiStorms startup scripts are not running after reboot and the LCD stalls at the mindsensors.com flashscreen.
Seth T 05.25.2017
Good afternoon! Please note that at no point in this tutorial do we ask you to run `sudo apt-get upgrade`. In fact, this will break things! You can read about others with this issue here: `retropie.org.uk/forum/topic/8615`. In short, you can run `cat /proc/cpuinfo' and look at the third-to-last line. For you it likely says `Hardware : BCM2835`. It should be BCM2709. The simplest solution would be to backup your programs and reset your microSD card.
Seth T 05.26.2017
Woohoo I got it to work! You can downgrade your Raspberry Pi's kernel. Run the following command and restart your Pi: `sudo rpi-update f3ea581387825d5693bff075f800c00fe825c106`
Seth T 05.26.2017
For the record, the latest you can use is 4.4.50, hash 52241088c1da59a359110d39c1875cda56496764. Any higher and the hardware ID will change so you'd need to figure out how to get the Adafruit library working again.
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