Are RPi4 12.0 nightly builds recommended for general use?

  • Hi,

    I'm a new user and hesitate between installing stable 11 or nightly for a new RPI4 install to benefit from latest kernel, drivers and features, given that I can manually update nightly versions by ssh wget.

    Is it stable enough and are most add-ons compatible and supported or better stick with stable?

  • I'd recommend using either LE11 official or LE11 nightly builds.

    LE11 updates are very conservative, mainly bugfixes, and LE11 nightlies have a low risk of breaking stuff (but might contain fixes you'd like to have since the latest official release).

    LE12 is OTOH is rather experimental, gets regular major updates which could break stuff and uses kodi Omega alpha versions. Only use that if you are prepared to fix stuff yourself when something breaks.

    so long,

    Hias

  • Should I be able to update to LE12 nightly builds from LE11?

    The reason I asked is because I tried an update and although it looked like it was updating, I'm still on the LE11 build I was using from March.

  • LE12 on RPi4 switched from 32bit to 64bit builds, and when trying to update from LE11 to LE12 you'll get an error message shown on screen because the compatibility check failed.

    You can disable the check by creating a .nocompat file in the .update folder

    Code
    touch /storage/.update/.nocompat

    Note though that you could run into issues with addons because of the 32->64bit switch (updating them should fix this).

    Also note that switching back from LE12 to LE11 is not supported.

    so long,

    Hias

  • Thanks, didn't know that 12 is getting a switch to 64 bit, that is a major change!

    I'm using 12 for the moment, and have experimented temporary dropouts on wifi near the router, i have turned off bluetooth (among many tests on wifi parameters) and this seemed to help, I also applied some tweaks by another user in config.txt to fix slowness on ssh terminal (disable leds and low power wifi). Im using a semi-case heatsink, dont know if this impacts the wifi/bluetooth antenna.

    Havent gone to 11 stable to rule this out, I think I should, but too much work to undo<X.

    Thanks for the tip, developer

  • Havent gone to 11 stable to rule this out, I think I should, but too much work to undo<X.

    That's the nice thing in the case of RPi, the all system is installed on an SD card, what is easy to replace.

    Why you don't simple use an another SD card to try another versions?

    I have a card with the latest LE 11 stable (in the case if the LE12 beta have any serious bug - doesn't got any yet...) and another card for playing with the new beta versions.

  • i do this on major release updates, since i do the evil updates all the time ;) (no fresh installs)

    always risky, so it makes sense to swap the sd cards. I love my RPi4.