Raspberry Pi Firmware

Current Version

To show the current installed version

uname -r

Upgrade

Install Tool

If the tool rpi-update is not already installed

apt-get -y install rpi-update

Upgrade

To upgrade to the latest firmware

rpi-update

or

PRUNE_MODULES=1 SKIP_WARNING=1 rpi-update

SKIP_WARNING=1 rpi-update
PRUNE_MODULES=1 rpi-update

Location

The location of the firwamre images that have been installed

/lib/modules

Manual Install

If for some reason the rpi-update is failing to install the update, try the following.

cd /root
rm -rf .rpi-firmware

wget https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-firmware/archive/refs/heads/master.zip
unzip master.zip
rm -f master.zip

mv rpi-firmware-master .rpi-firmware
SKIP_DOWNLOAD=1 rpi-update

Cleaning

You can remove all but the last two versions

Example of before:

drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 2017-11-24 19:49 .
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4096 2017-07-09 22:29 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-03-24 11:24 4.9.16+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-03-24 11:24 4.9.16-v7+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-05-20 19:37 4.9.28+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-05-20 19:37 4.9.28-v7+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-07-09 22:31 4.9.35+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-07-09 22:31 4.9.35-v7+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-07-09 22:45 4.9.36+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-07-09 22:45 4.9.36-v7+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-11-18 18:18 4.9.62+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-11-18 18:18 4.9.62-v7+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-11-24 19:49 4.9.64+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-11-24 19:49 4.9.64-v7+

Example of after:

drwxr-xr-x  6 root root 4096 2017-11-24 19:50 .
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4096 2017-07-09 22:29 ..
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-11-18 18:18 4.9.62+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-11-18 18:18 4.9.62-v7+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-11-24 19:49 4.9.64+
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 2017-11-24 19:49 4.9.64-v7+

Reference

https://github.com/raspberrypi/rpi-update