On Mon, 15 Oct 2018 20:55:48 +0000, RRansil wrote:

> On 2018-10-15, Martin Gregorie  wrote:
>> On Mon, 15 Oct 2018 17:29:31 +0000, Alister wrote:
>>
>>> On Mon, 15 Oct 2018 16:53:22 +0000, RRansil wrote:
>>>
>>>> I'm currently using Raspbian Stretch with no problems, but recently
>>>> noticed there is a new version of Raspbian available. Every month I
>>>> use apt-get update/apt-get dist-upgrade, so I'm getting kernel
>>>> changes to the installed Raspbian that way. The Pi's only use at the
>>>> moment is to run a BOINC project headlessly. Are there any reasons
>>>> why I should routinely install the latest Raspbian operating systems
>>>> as they are released?
>>>
>>> there are 2 schools of though on this one
>>>
>>> 1st - if it aint broke dont fix it, afterall if the project is working
>>> perfectly why risk something breaking
>>>
>>> 2nd upgrading the operating system keeps you up to date with security
>>> fixes reducing the chances of something(or someone) untoward
>>> happening.
>>>
>>>
>>> I tend to option 1 unless the item his accessible via external
>>> connections (such as but not limited to the internet). even being
>>> behind a firewall is no guarantee, what happens if someone on the
>>> inside of the network becomes infected?
>>>
>> Good summary, though I'd tighten it up a little as:
>>
>> 1)if its working well and HAS NO ETHERNET OR WIFI CONNECTIONS
>>   then leave it alone
>>
>> 2)2nd in all other cases, keep Raspbian up to date with versions and
>>   patches
>>
>> Extension to (2): if it exchanges data with any other system that can
>> transfer software, e.g. by exchanging SD cards, then keep it fully
>> patched.
>>
>> In addition, and I think this applies to both cases 1 and 2; if you
>> upgrade or replace the application/script/whatever that you've
>> installed to make it to do whatever it does, then its a good idea to
>> bring Raspbian fully up to date as part of that process.
>
> Thank you for the helpful information. I'll be updating the OS. I was
> hoping to avoid that due to the fact that it's running headless,
> although I may try to use VNC Connect to do the configurations.

If you have an SSH connection to your RPi you can do anything you want
with it even if it is headless.

Using SSH to talk to an RPi from a Linux system is a no-brainer: it
should 'just work' if you know its IP because starting sshd, the SSH
server, is now the standard configuration and, provided you've enabled X11
forwarding, you can even run graphical packages on the RPi with it using
your desktop, keyboard and mouse.

Its almost as easy from Windows - just install the PuTTY package on the
Windows box. PuTTY provides a console window to login from and also
offers scp file transfers, but doesn't support X11 forwarding (or didn't
last time I used it - a long time ago as I haven't used Windows since
about 2004.

Its also worth knowing that many FTP clients now support SSH file
transfers. gftp, the graphical Linux FTP client for many distros is an
excellent way of bashing files back and forth.


--
Martin    | martin at
Gregorie  | gregorie dot org

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