Are you talking about MinePeon update or Arch Linux update? I never had problems with MinePeon but I always destroy the SD when trying to update the OS.

I believe that in most cases, the cgminerLCDStats should function correctly even if you skip doing both the MinePeon and the OS updates. Honestly, I included the update steps without thinking much about it, just because I'm in the habit of always doing it. Now that I'm more familiar with MinePeon, I think I'll update the tutorial to show the updates as optional steps. That'll be more appropriate for the user base I think.