When you search for raspberry pi firmware version check
Installing and running rpi-update will – besides updating the GPU firmware – also install vcgencmd, I got this result:
statler:~ # LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/opt/vc/lib/
statler:~ # export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
statler:~ # /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version
Jul 15 2016 17:50:10
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version efa728fef77ea14ceb1500caf0146395fa282a0f (clean) (release)
But I wanted to be able to run vcgencmd before installing updates.
openmamba indicates it’s part of their raspberrypi-utils package with sources in the raspberrypi-userland package tracing back to git://github.com/raspberrypi/userland.git which is at https://github.com/raspberrypi/userland.
So I had two choices: compile https://github.com/raspberrypi/userland or find the binaries that rpi-update installs and are already runnable. I went for the second first by digging in https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-update/blob/master/rpi-update which on one of the first lines points to https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-firmware where the binaries are stored under https://github.com/Hexxeh/rpi-firmware/tree/master/vc/softfp/opt/vc.
The logic for copying the files is in the update_vc_libs function. The calling do_update function updates a lot more, including the firmware. So I wrote a quick pull request to just download the userland binaries:
Feature SKIP_FIRMWARE for #220: forces SKIP_KERNEL=1 and also skip the kernel.img files and the kernel modules: This effectively only installs the userland and SDK.
Source: #220 feature `SKIP_FIRMWARE` by jpluimers · Pull Request #221 · Hexxeh/rpi-update
Hopefully it gets merged in. When not, then you can always take a look at the commit: #220 feature SKIP_FIRMWARE · jpluimers/rpi-update@5a2ec0b
Run these commands to get going:
cd /root/bin
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jpluimers/rpi-update/5a2ec0bc552436d58127cc20e3791cb5b90fd5ba/rpi-update
chmod +x rpi-update
SKIP_FIRMWARE=1 UPDATE_SELF=0 ./rpi-update
You should see this when updating:
*** Raspberry Pi firmware updater by Hexxeh, enhanced by AndrewS and Dom
*** We're running for the first time
*** Backing up files (this will take a few minutes)
*** Remove old firmware backup
*** As requested, not updating firmware and kernel modules
This update bumps to rpi-4.4.y linux tree
Be aware there could be compatibility issues with some drivers
Discussion here:
https://www.raspberrypi.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=144087
##############################################################
*** Downloading specific firmware revision (this will take a few minutes)
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
100 168 0 168 0 0 361 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 362
100 51.2M 100 51.2M 0 0 1246k 0 0:00:42 0:00:42 --:--:-- 1446k
*** As requested, not updating firmware and kernel
*** As requested, not updating firmware and kernel modules
*** Updating VideoCore libraries
*** Using HardFP libraries
*** Updating SDK
*** Running ldconfig
*** Storing current firmware revision
*** Deleting downloaded files
*** Syncing changes to disk
*** If no errors appeared, your firmware was successfully updated to 818a860cf690d64c62d3227ad9c36d5867a671c2
*** A reboot is needed to activate the new firmware
And the final goal of checking the firmware version now works:
# LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/vc/lib /opt/vc/bin/vcgencmd version
Jul 15 2016 17:50:10
Copyright (c) 2012 Broadcom
version efa728fef77ea14ceb1500caf0146395fa282a0f (clean) (release)
–jeroen
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 