Upgrade from Lithium to Beryllium

rbh · 2022-11-06 16:00:09

Upgrading to Bunsenlabs Beryllium

Bunsenlabs is built on Debian Stable. Beryllium is based on Debian 11, Bullseye.
You can upgrade from the old version to the new by changing the sources for packages, and then do an update/upgrade/full-upgrade.

There are no guarantee that the upgrade can be carried out completely error-free. Some precautions is advisable.
Reading and following this tutorial and the papers linked below, will minimize the risk.

Release Notes for Debian 11 Bullseye: Upgrades from Debian 10 (buster)
Debian Handbook's generic advice on upgrading: Upgrading from One Stable Distribution to the Next

1 Prepararations

1.1 Make sure you have enough free disk space: ~3GB
apt can show you detailed information about the disk space needed for the installation.
After you edited sources lists, before executing the upgrade, you can see this estimate by running:

$ sudo apt -o APT::Get::Trivial-Only=true full-upgrade

1.2 Update all packages to latest version

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade

1.3 Clean
1.3.1 Remove unnecessary auto installed packages

$ sudo apt autoremove

1.3.2 Remove obsolete packages
Obsolete packages (not in any repository on your list anymore) is a security risk (they don't get any (security-)updates)). They can also complicate the upgrade.

You can list obsolete and locally installed packages with command:

$ aptitude search ?obsolete
or
$ aptitude search ~o

You can filter them out in synaptic:
Menu > System > Synaptic Package Manager > Status > Installed (local or obsolete)
(Don't remove packages you have downloaded to disk and installed, that you need and you continuously check for upgrades.)

1.4 Back up any data or configuration information
Before upgrading your system, it is strongly recommended that you make a full backup, or at least back up any data or configuration information you can't afford to lose. The upgrade tools and process are quite reliable, but a hardware failure in the middle of an upgrade could result in a severely damaged system.

The main things you'll want to back up are the contents of /etc, /var/lib/dpkg, /var/lib/apt/extended_states and the output of dpkg --get-selections "*" (the quotes are important). If you use aptitude to manage packages on your system, you will also want to back up /var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates.
You may want to make a backup of the hidden files and directories (“dotfiles”) in users' home directories. This backup may help to restore or recreate the old settings.

2 Edit Bunsenlabs and Debian sources list

Debian repositories are listed in /etc/apt/sources.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d
The default file for the Bunsenlabs repo is /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bunsen.list
Backport sources are in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-[named.version]-backports.list and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bunsen-[named.version]-backports.list

Editing sources lists, requires root privileges. Thunar file-manager has an option: "open as root".

2.1 Disable Backports
By definition, backported packages are supposed to upgrade smoothly to the next stable version (ie buster-backports > bullseye), so backported packages may no longer be necessary. Disable your backports sources before a dist-upgrade (disable by commenting out the lines with "#"). After the dist-upgrade, see if the packages are still required (or even available) - just because a package was available in buster-backports doesn't always mean there's a bullseye-backports version.
Also disable Debian proposed-updates if they are enabled.

2.2 Disable third-party repositories
We recommend that these are disabled before trying a dist-upgrade.You can then research again to see if they're still necessary, and if so put them back in. We don't count BunsenLabs (BL) repos as third-party repositories.

2.3 Change to the new apt sources

For updating from Lithium to Beryllium, change /etc/apt/sources.list.d/bunsen.list from:

deb https://pkg.bunsenlabs.org/debian lithium main

to

deb https://pkg.bunsenlabs.org/debian beryllium main

If you also have the development repo enabled, disable it or change

deb https://kelaino.bunsenlabs.org/~johnraff/debian/ lithium main

to

deb http://kelaino.bunsenlabs.org/~johnraff/debian/ beryllium main

To edit the Debian repos, edit /etc/apt/sources.list. Depending on which mirror (https://www.debian.org/mirror/list) you use, change the sources from:

deb https://deb.debian.org/debian buster main contrib non-free
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian buster-updates main contrib non-free
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian-security buster/updates main contrib non-free

to

deb https://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye main contrib non-free
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian bullseye-updates main contrib non-free
deb https://deb.debian.org/debian-security bullseye-security main contrib non-free

Note the syntax change for security: from buster/updates to bullseye-security.
Oficcial repos now support https:, which is recomended. So sources urls now should begin with "https:"

3: Run the upgrade process

The recommended way to upgrade from previous Debian releases is to use the package management tool apt.
It is safer to run the upgrade in a console tty (Ctrl+Alt+F[1-6]). The upgrade should be done on a text console, because your desktop environment could freeze during post-install/service restarts, leaving the system in a broken state.
If you are upgrading remote, in an ssh-connection, run the upgrade in an virtual console like screen or tmux. Then the process wont be interrupted if the connection goes down.

To upgrade, run the following commands in sequence:

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt upgrade
$ sudo apt full-upgrade

Reboot, when upgrade is complete

4 Post-Upgrade configuration

When logged in, the bl-user-setup script will check for changed user config files, and offer the choice to update them to new default versions. From 'man bl-user-setup':

...
This script is run non-interactively on a user's first login, and on  subsequent  logins
       to  check  for  new  default configurations in /usr/share/bunsen/skel that may have come
       from a package upgrade.  User set configurations will not be  modified  without  permission.

       It  can also be run manually with custom options....

4.1 Again, check for obsolete packages.

4.2 Check for new functions in BL (new packages).
Only package "bunsen-configs" and "bunsen-configs-lite", will also install new BL packages.
You can in synaptic search for uninstalled BL packages. Search for "bunsen-".

Also, read Beryllium Release notes.

Note: The Beryllium version is not yet released, but will soon be.
Not all packages for beryllium has been transferred to BL repo pkg.bunsenlabs.org.
The Beryllium theme, is provided by bunsen-utilities-11.6.1-1. If you want to install beryllium theme, you have to download it from the development server:
https://kelaino.bunsenlabs.org/~johnraf … -1_all.deb, or add the sources: BunsenLabs Beryllium experimental packages are available

This tutorial is a rewrite of the post Upgrading from Helium to Lithium by @damo

Last edited by johnraff (2025-01-18 00:59:34)

johnraff · 2022-12-20 03:04:27

NOTE: the packages in the official repositories ( pkg.bunsenlabs.org ) are now up to date and there's no longer any need to use the kelaino.bunsenlabs.org repository, which will soon be taken offline.

#1 2022-11-06 16:00:09