This is intended to provide various useful commands for maintaining CircuitPython devices.

PS C:\Users\bcr00\Source\bcr\blinka-cli> python -m blinka --help
usage: python -m blinka [-h] [-v] [-l LOCALE] {backup,bossa,bootloader,update,sync,port,font} ...

Perform CircuitPython operations.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose         be chatty
  -l LOCALE, --locale LOCALE
                        specify the locale (default: en_US)

subcommands:
  {backup,bossa,bootloader,update,sync,port,font}
                        specify which operation to perform, use --help after the operation for operation-specific help

• Back up CircuitPython contents
• Maintain CircuitPython
  • Compare version and upgrade if newer version available
  • Allow for installing pre-release version
  • Force reinstall of current version
  • Force install a particular version
• Maintain libraries
  • Force reinstall of installed libraries to corresponding CircuitPython version

Make sure the requirements are installed per requirements.txt

Within CircuitPython there are a lot of different places where there are name / numberspaces:

• Processors
  • M0, M4
  • SAMD21, SAMD51
• Platform identifiers (from user mode)
  • Adafruit Feather M0 RFM69 with samd21g18
  • Adafruit PyPortal with samd51j20
• Board IDs (firmware root names)
  • feather_m0_rfm69
  • pyportal_titano
  • adafruit_magtag_2.9_grayscale
• Board-ID from bootloader INFO_UF2.TXT
  • MagTag-29gray-revC (different than board ID adafruit_magtag_2.9_grayscale in firmware root name)
• USB VID / PID
  • Adafruit VID
  • PIDs differ between bootloader and user mode COM ports
• Mounted disk volume labels
  • CIRCUITPY for user mode
    • Can be renamed by user, so not reliable
  • LOTS for bootloader mode
    • BOOT is used a lot for a suffix
    • shIRtty mixed case, no BOOT
    • ARCADE-D5 dash, no BOOT
    • Grove Zero mixed case, space in name, no BOOT
• os.uname() information
  • (sysname='samd51', nodename='samd51', release='6.0.0', version='6.0.0 on 2020-11-16', machine='Adafruit PyPortal Titano with samd51j20')

Some problems I have encountered:

• In bootloader mode there is not enough information to find the Board ID (in this case, is it a Titano? I know first-hand that the Titano firmware is materially different than the non-Titano PyPortal)

PS C:\Users\bcr00\Source\bcr\blinka-cli> type E:\INFO_UF2.TXT
UF2 Bootloader v1.23.1-adafruit.1-89-gcfdd5ba SFHWRO
Model: PyPortal M4 Express
Board-ID: SAMD51J20A-PyPortal-v0

• Mapping from the Platform Identifer to the Board ID seems fragile
  • Other manufacturers may not be as careful with naming
    • J&J Studios datum-Distance with None -- the None processor
    • SparkFun Qwiic Micro with samd21e18 -- there is both sparkfun_qwiic_micro_no_flash and sparkfun_qwiic_micro_with_flash with this Platform Identifier
    • ndGarage[n°] Bit6: FeatherSnow-v2 with samd21e18 -- a UTF-8 party