Any way to update the software in Raspian without updating the OS?

So, I’ve had a Raspberry Pi 4 sitting brand new in a box for a few years, and decided to install BirdNetPi on it yesterday.

It’s working like a champ, but because BirdNetPi needed a legacy version of Raspian, it’s got old software on it.

Is there any way to update the software (i.e. RealVNC) without updating the OS? There is no built-in software updater, and I seem to very easily break Linux every time I make an attempt to use it. LOL

Deckweiss,

I don’t know why your software or OS can not be updated.

According to the official instructions (github.com/mcguirepr89/…/Installation-Guide) is should just be a normal raspbian. Nothing on there says it needs a legacy version, but I may be overlooking something.

If you installed it some other way or did it long ago then maybe do the setup over again from scratch with the newest raspbian version? (Don’t forget to backup any data you’d want to keep)

Showroom7561,

Nothing on there says it needs a legacy version, but I may be overlooking something.

It took several attempts (with failures) to get it installed on the latest Raspian version, then after some digging I saw that the requirements said to use “An SD Card with the 64-bit version of RaspiOS installed (please use Bullseye)”.

With Bullseye installed, BirdNetPi works just fine, but it is old and comes with old software.

Deckweiss, (edited )

Ah makes sense. Still there should be no issue with doing stuff the normal way.

apt update doesn’t update your OS to a whole new version.

The command for an OS update is something like “do-release-upgrade” (but I forgot the exact name since I havent used debian for years)

4am,

Only on Ubuntu based distros AFAIK but sudo do-release-upgrade is the correct command

TechAdmin,

Create a backup image from the working SD card. Write that backup image to a spare SD card and verify it works. Then try to do ‘apt update’ and see if anything breaks. If it breaks you got a spare SD card ready to go :)

apprehentice,

Maybe sudo apt upgrade package-name

I hardly ever have to upgrade just one package. Otherwise, you’ll need an updated .deb package and use dpkg

Showroom7561,

I’d rather update anything that’s old, as long as it stays on the same OS version (Bullseye and not Bookworm).

With newer versions of Raspian or any version of Linux, there seems to be a software update GUI that makes this pretty easy, but I’m taking stabs in the dark with this legacy version.

uzay,

As long as your apt sources (/etc/apt/sources.list) are set to bullseye (and not eg. stable) you won’t “accidentally” upgrade to bookworm. At least that’s how it works in Debian, I assume raspbian is the same.

Showroom7561,

I appreciate that! Thanks.

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