I’m running a Pi5 in a case with a small OLED display that requires i2c which is not included in the Umbrel distribution. Is it safe to update the underlying OS so I can install and configure the necessary dependencies (including raspi-config) to enable the case display?
Hey, that’s a very good question. By now I almost have the feeling that the Umbrel project is dead or dying. Just looking at the numbers on Discord. The Umbrel Discord has only 10% of the online users as the CasaOS Discord. Anyway. Back to the topic. I would also like to have i2c so that I can finally use my Argon Case correctly. Unfortunately there was no answer. They probably prefer to push the Umbrel “PC” and not rely on Pi hardware, which I can understand to some extent. However, I will now move again and install plain Raspberry OS. Too bad. Could have been nice. Maybe I’ll get some more feedback and then I’ll be back. I really liked the project. Maybe they’ll find another business model that can save it.
Yeah, it seems there’s dwindling support for the community from the developers here. In addition to CasaOS, there’s also Start9, which I’m tempted to experiment with. The initial difficulty of getting an NVMe SSD to work, then the subsequent lack of help for those of us who have cases and/or displays of various types make me wonder about Umbrel’s long term outlook.
That said, both CasaOS and Start9 also have a substantially similar market approach (hardware focused) so I guess the same applies. I just hope that the Umbrel team can keep up with development and maintain current versions of the apps.