Upgrading Lakka

Updating Lakka can break your system if you have customized it a lot. Before you choose to update, it is wise to backup important things like your savefiles.

The following upgrade procedures will upgrade the kernel and the system. Sometimes, the bootloader configuration will be updated too. But it will not update the configuration file of retroarch. This can lead to problems like wrong paths.

To avoid these issues, you should purge your retroarch.cfg after the upgrade.

Upgrade procedures

Updating from the graphical interface

Latest versions of Lakka supports upgrading to the next (or previous) versions directly from the graphical interface. For this,

1. Go to Online Updater
2. Go to Update Lakka
3. Scroll to the OS image you want to download (be careful with the dates) and hit OK
4. Once the download is finished, reboot

You should see some messages about the upgrade process. After some seconds, your system will reboot.

Manual updates

1. Download the latest img.gz file corresponding to your hardware from here.
2. Place this file in your Storage partition, in the .update folder, either using SAMBA or by mounting it
3. Boot or reboot your hardware.

You should see some messages about the upgrade process. After some seconds, your system will reboot.

Updating using a USB drive (PC only)

This method works only for PC.

1. Download the latest img.gz corresponding to your device from here
2. Extract it
3. Flash the image to a USB drive (all data will be lost)
4. Plug the USB drive in your Lakka Box
5. Boot, and select installer while in the bootloader menu
6. Once in the installer, there is an update entry

Reflash everything

The safest method to update your Lakka OS. We recommand this method when upgrading to a new major version.

1. Backup all your ROMs, Saves, Savestates, Screenshots, etc
2. Reinstall Lakka from scratch
3. Add your data back

Upgrading using lakka-update

If you’re used to connect to your Lakka box using SSH, this method will fit your needs. It downloads the latest development tar, extract it and let you reboot.

1. Connect using SSH
2. Type lakka-update, wait for the download to finish
3. Reboot

Purging your retroarch.cfg

Connect using SSH, and type:

systemctl stop retroarch
rm .config/retroarch/retroarch.cfg
systemctl start retroarch