openHABian v1.4 / v1.4.1 released!

We are very excited to present the latest additions to the openHABian setup and configuration tool for openHAB, alongside the latest openHABian images for Raspberry Pi (2, 3, 0W) and Pine A64. The main focus of this version was usability. Many additions and improvements were introduced to improve the setup experience by guiding the user through the setup steps and by helping with problems.

This release is especially exiting for us as it is released alongside openHAB 2.2!

Download

Installation / Upgrade

  • If you are new to openHAB(ian) or want to start with a fresh openHABian system on your Raspberry Pi or Pine A64, just download the right image file and follow the installation instructions: http://docs.openhab.org/installation/openhabian.html#quick-start
  • If you want to benefit from all the options openHABian offers, you can execute the openHABian configuration tool on any Debian/Ubuntu based system to get almost all options the openHABian images offer. See: http://docs.openhab.org/installation/openhabian.html#manual-setup
  • If you are already a proud owner of an openHABian system, you simply have to execute the Update option from inside sudo openhabian-config to gain access to the latest additions. If in doubt, re-run functions to apply latest changes.

Changes between v1.4 and v1.4.1

The RPi v1.4.1 release is a maintenance release to support the newly released Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+. You can use it for all RPi models. As always: There is no need to reinstall an existing setup that was e.g. set up with the v1.4 or v1.3 image.

Changes between v1.3 and v1.4

The complete set of git commits leading to this release can be found here. Please go through them to get an idea of the changes. We want to highlight a few changes:

Raspbian Stretch

This change is only interesting for new users of the Raspberry Pi image.

In June 2017 the latest Debian distribution version, named Debian Stretch, was released. Raspbian adapted shortly after and in August 2017 the latest Raspbian Stretch image followed.
We are proud to announce that openHABian now also offers a Stretch based RPi image. Check out the links above for improvements. For normal openHAB users these should not make a big difference. The only change to look out for is the improved support for bluetooth speakers.
If you are currently on a Rasbian Jessie based system, there is no need to worry. Raspbian (openHABian) Jessie is just fine and will be supported by the openHABian configuration tool for the months to come. If you ever need to switch over to Stretch, you can do so either by upgrading or by starting fresh.

Improved Setup Process

This change is only important for users of the openHABian images.

We’ve invested many hours of testing and fixing to improve the setup procedure and to handle potential problems for you. Now more than never you can expect a fully working system after the setup procedure. If anything goes wrong, the log printout will tell you. You will find it on your SD card and during the installation when connecting via SSH.
For more details please see: http://docs.openhab.org/installation/openhabian.html#successful

Automatic openHABian Tool Update

So far you had to execute the “Update” menu entry before everything else to work with the latest version of the openHABian Configuration Tool. Sometimes you’d forget about that and be confronted with long solved bugs or missing functions. No more. The newest release includes a step to check for updates during the start of the tool. It will inform you about updates.

Dashboard Tiles

openHAB 2 always offered the dashboard as a starting point to access it’s various user interfaces. With openHAB 2.2 the openHABian setup will now add Tiles for applications you’ve installed through it, e.g the openHAB Log Viewer. This will make accessing your different web frontends a whole lot easier!

FIND

Find, the Framework for Internal Navigation and Discovery, is an application to allow high precision localization of your Android smartphone. openHABian now includes the FIND server as an optional component. If you want to learn more, please check out:

Mi Flora Flower Sensor Daemon

If you want to monitor the moisture, light and fertility of your plant pot soil, the Xiaomi Mi Flora sensor is an excellent choice. openHABian now brings an optional component to retrieve data from these sensors so you can easily include those sensors in openHAB. If you are interested, check out:

Amanda Improvements

The Backup solution Amanda was introduced in the last openHABian version by @mstormi. Since then he has invested a lot of time to improve and extend the functionality of the automated steps. If you did not yet use it, now might be the time.

Viewing Logs from the Console

If you don’t want to check your log from the openHAB Log Viewer web frontend, you can always go “back to the roots” and access the log files directly from the console. openHABian now offers a customized multitail color scheme, which helps to observe the openHAB logs for the important stuff. Thanks to @christoph_wempe for the addition!

Simply execute openhablog on your SSH console.

Node.js for ARMv6

The openHAB Log Viewer as well as Node-RED as an optional component depend on Node.js. You can now also install it on your Raspberry Pi 1, 0 and 0W.


About the Future of openHABian - Contributors Wanted!

Over the first halve of 2018 I (@ThomDietrich) will not be able to invest any significant time into the openHABian project. We are therefore looking for interested developers to drive the project further! Development can go in many directions and part of this release was also to clean up and structure the code base for your easy start. You should bring basic bash and git experience, the openHABian project is an easy one to get stated with! If you are interested, drop a comment, contact one of the openHAB maintainers privately or directly push a PR our way :wink:

Check out the list of existing ideas or add your own: https://github.com/openhab/openhabian/issues


Please visit the openHABian documentation article to learn how to setup and use openHABian and openHAB to build your own Smart Home! http://docs.openhab.org/installation/openhabian.html

Enjoy and Happy Hacking!

44 Likes

If you have questions or ideas for the next version of openHABian, or if you ran into any difficulties, please post them over in the main openHABian thread:

Thanks!

1 Like

Hey @ThomDietrich thanks for all the hard work on this. The updates all look really good and i’ll have a play later tonight. Hope your start to 2018 is deservedly relaxing.

2 Likes

Unfortunately I can not install on RP2
I am getting message

[ TIME ] Timed out waiting for device dev-serial1.device. to get ready 

Problem solved

Used SD Formatter, Formatted my SD Card using format type Full (Erase), Fresh installation and working now.

Thank you for all hard work.

1 Like

Awesome! Thank You developers for all hard work!

3 Likes

That is a very nice feature! Very good work!
But one thing is not jet right:
The setup for the tiles does not pay attention to a changed hostname.
It sticks to openhabianpi

I just reinstalled with latest release.
Tried to open the Karaf console using link:
/usr/share/openhab2/runtime/bin/client
It won’t run. Is the file moved? From windows i have located the file in the shared folder \OPENHABIANPI\openHAB-share\openhab2-sys\runtime\bin
Edit: both client and karaf file are in the /usr/share/openhab2/runtime/bin/ folder
Karaf service not running i assume.

should i wait for the OH 2.2. release to update the openhabian, or should i do this now ? :slight_smile:
thanks!

I did a from-scratch install with the new image. I’m seeing a pretty core failure, right at the start. first-boot.sh runs for a couple seconds and dies. The OS itself seems fine, but there’s no logging to indicate what the issue might be:

2017-11-29_02:37:42_UTC [openHABian] Starting the openHABian initial setup.
2017-11-29_02:37:42_UTC [openHABian] Storing configuration... OK
2017-11-29_02:37:43_UTC [openHABian] Changing default username and password... OK
2017-11-29_02:37:48_UTC [openHABian] Setting up Wi-Fi connection... OK, rebooting...
2017-11-29_02:37:59_UTC [openHABian] Starting the openHABian initial setup.
2017-11-29_02:37:59_UTC [openHABian] Storing configuration... OK
2017-11-29_02:37:59_UTC [openHABian] Changing default username and password... SKIPPED
2017-11-29_02:37:59_UTC [openHABian] Setting up Wi-Fi connection... OK
2017-11-29_02:37:59_UTC [openHABian] Ensuring network connectivity... OK
2017-11-29_02:37:59_UTC [openHABian] Waiting for dpkg/apt to get ready... OK
2017-11-29_02:38:19_UTC [openHABian] Updating repositories and upgrading installed packages... FAILED
2017-12-18_20:09:43_UTC [openHABian] Initial setup exiting with an error!

Re-running it from the command line seems to work. Unfortunately without any diagnostics at all beyond that, I’m not sure how you’re going to fix it. It happened three times in a row, though, so its not a transient problem. If anyone else sees it, at least for me if you “sudo /bin/bash” and then run “/boot/first-boot.sh”, it’ll continue. (I found there’s something up with the shell script that fails if you do it directly “sudo /boot/first-boot.sh” kicks out with an error:

first-boot.sh: 4: first-boot.sh: Syntax error: redirection unexpected

1 Like

OH2.2 was release an hour and a half ago. My existing Openhabian install already prompted me to upgrade to it.

1 Like

Update!
I upgraded to OH2.2 and the karaf console is up and running.

Just an FYI, in openhab 2.2 you can access the openhab console anywhere on localhost by using the command:

openhab-cli console

when using an apt or yum installation.

Thanks, i upgraded to 2.2 and the most seems to be fine, but

my LOG stopped, its not refreshing ( xx.xx.xx.xx:9001 )
JSONPATH Items arent working
CSS styling is partly gone :smiley: - how do i activate the “Data Theme=Dark” ? :smiley:

i havent done any editing/fixing yet, so this is maybe fixed quickly - i’ll see :slight_smile:

thanks to the devs for their work :heart:

its a lot faster on my Raspb.3 in my opinion, the refresh of all the switches and buttons is now working as expected , it seems i dont need to do refresh my browser any more

THANKS AGAIN

EDIT:
this fixed my log:

Thx a lot for your very apprecitated work, ThomDietrich.

I just faced an issue with the additional dashboard tiles: The link behind the tiles do not respect my changes of the hostname.

Where do they get the url from?

Thx, G.

1 Like

Hello Peter, Hello @LuFriFri,
that is indeed true. I didn’t think about that (and it’s not straight forward). Let me file an issue, it will hopefully be fixed soon.
Till then you can change the used hostname inside /etc/openhab2/services/dashboard.cfg

Got a problem here. Wanted to update, so i executed “update” in openhabian-config and then this came up.


Any ideas?

EDIT:
Now i started the “UPGRADE” function under sudo openhabian-config. After that was successfully i wondered about that?!
2

OpenHAB 2.2.0-1 release build?
It seems that the update has been done?!

Hello @Boogieman,

something is weird with your openHABian configuration menu. It is not able to update itself out of a to me unknown reason. Good news: It appears you are on the latest openHAB version!!

To repair openHABian, please execute line by line:

sudo rm -rf /opt/openhabian
sudo git clone https://github.com/openhab/openhabian.git /opt/openhabian

sudo openhabian-config

That should be it. Select “Update” to verify it’s working.

Btw you should change your default password :wink:

1 Like

Hi,
made a fresh install of the new openHABian 1.4.

Now I want to install homegear via config-tool, but runs into error:

$ apt -y install homegear homegear-homematicbidcos homegear-homematicwired
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 homegear : Depends: libgnutls-deb0-28 (>= 3.3.0) but it is not installable
            Depends: libmysqlclient18 (>= 5.5.24+dfsg-1) but it is not installable
            Depends: libssl1.0.0 (>= 1.0.1) but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
FAILED

Any ideas how to fix?