Do I need to run an expand drive sketch if I update the Yun Firmware subsequent to expanding?

Question

I have a Geeetech Iduino Yun shield, that initially had Geetech's System image (v2.02, 2015) on it. I then ran a USB storage expander sketch to take advantage of the space on a flash drive. I then installed a number of packages (such as vim). I subsequently flashed/updated the firmware with Dragino v2 yun-4.1.2 sysupgrade firmware, only to find that vim and other packages have disappeared, as well as my Python code.

Has the update undone the expansion and is the Linux system now confined to what's provided by the firmware? Do I need to run an expansion sketch and install packages again?

Answer 1

After upgrading the firmware and rebooting:

1. Log in to your Yun through your browser and use the LuCI interface.
2. Navigate to "System" > "Software" and observe the "Free space" meter. You will see that the total space shown is between 800KB and 1MB, instead of the size of your flash drive. This indicates that the system is that of the memory available on the board.

Yes, you will need to run the expander sketch again and reinstall software that was previously there. (You might want to back up the contents of the drive beforehand, using a PC running GNU/Linux.)