How to upgrade DGT Pi?

[Marc Desmedt]

I have recently bought a DGT Pi. How do I upgrade it's software?

I did not find any firmware update on the DGT site and was wonder how to do it.

[RandyR]

Hi Marc,

All software is contained on the SD card, including firmware. Updating current software requires accessing the OS using SSH or with a monitor/keyboard attached and executing some linux commands (e.g. apt) to update the software. An easier way is to write a new image to the SD card using a program such as BalenaEtcher. There are images available in this thread, and other places (browse the forum).

Randy

[Marc Desmedt]

Thanks! I understood there is some kind of auto-update feature, is that what you were referring to with the linux commands?

Probably those updates are not as recent as the ones I can find offline right?

In worst case, is there some kind of revert to the original factory settings as it came out of the box?

Or would that be the same thing, as in replacing the image on the SD card with the official DGT one, if there is such a thing.

[RandyR]

Some distributions of Linux (e.g. Ubuntu, Mint, Manjaro) use scripts to check for updates but I was referring to using the 'apt' command to update manually. The image released with the DGTPi (v0.9l, which is on the SD card) is based on Debian 9 (Stretch) which is quite old now. Debian 11 (Bullseye) has been released but the Raspberry Pi organization has not yet released a version for the Raspberry Pi. The latest version of the Raspberry Pi OS (formerly called Raspbian) is based on Debian 10 (Buster) which is what most, if not all, PicoChess images are using. Note that it is a 32-bit ARM OS. PicoChess will run in a 64-bit OS but the libraries that access the clock hardware directly in the DGTPi have not been successfully converted to 64-bit so you need to use the built-in web server to access the menu.

To revert to the stock software just involves flashing the SD card with the original image (v0.9l), available on the DGT support website. v0.9n is also available, and one of the original software authors (Jürgen Precour) continues to release new versions via a paid subscription (at least I think he is). Dirk Mollmann continued improving  the GPL version of PicoChess and has recently released v3.

The nice thing about the Raspberry Pi is that it is cheap to purchase SD cards (you really don't need anything larger than 16 GB) and simple to change the software just by flashing a different image. I do believe it's helpful learning a bit of Linux in order to make some customizations, edit files or add chess engines, though.

Randy

[RandyR]

It appears that DGT is no longer making the DGTPi software available for download. I hadn't been there in a while and they have a new website. Interesting...

At any rate, the source code is available.

Randy

[Marc Desmedt]

Thanks Randy for the elaborate answers. Much appreciated.

[olfreddy06]

https://digitalgametechnology.com/support/sotfware/software-downloads-2

[RandyR]

It's back. Thanks for the heads-up.

Randy