Debian 13 trixie upgrade

friday.md

Debian 13 "Trixie"

To start, read the official release notes.

If your install fits into "vanilla Debian plus maybe a handful of 3rd-party repos", then this guide for a simple upgrade to Debian 13 "trixie" from Debian 12 "bookworm" can be helpful. 3rd-party repos are handled with a find command.

If you are on a fork of Debian such as RasPI OS, use their instructions, not this gist.

Note upgrade is only supported from Debian 12 to Debian 13. If you are on Debian 11, upgrade to Debian 12 first. Then once on Debian 12, you can upgrade to Debian 13.

From Debian 13, you can upgrade to Debian 14 after its release in summer 2027.

This guide is only for the OS itself. Applications are as plentiful as sand on the beach, and they may all require additional steps. Plan for that.

• Check free disk space

df -h

5 GiB free is a conservative amount. sudo apt clean and sudo apt autoremove can be used to free some disk space.

On a server with only docker installed, even 1 GiB free was sufficient. Do err on the side of caution here, however.

• Identify any 3rd-party repos that may need to be updated. They'll be changed with a find command, below.

ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d

• Update current distribution

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

If this brought in a new kernel, sudo reboot - otherwise continue

• Optional: Start a screen session

So that an SSH disconnect doesn't stop your upgrade halfway through, you can run in screen:

sudo apt install -y screen && screen

• Change old-style Debian repos to trixie, from bookworm.

sources.list might no longer be in use. If your system uses debian.sources, the next step takes care of that

sudo sed -i 's/bookworm/trixie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

non-free has been split since Debian 12 and if used, you should also use non-free-firmware. If you are unsure, check and adjust. More complete instructions are in the Debian 12 release notes and the gist for Debian 12 upgrade

• Change all repos in sources.list.d to trixie, from bookworm

This assumes the repos have trixie versions. Run sudo apt update after the change to trixie to confirm, and deal with any repos that aren't available in trixie.

sudo find /etc/apt/sources.list.d -type f \( -name '*.list' -o -name '*.sources' \) -exec sed -i 's/bookworm/trixie/g' {} \;

Run sudo apt update and if it fails on some repos because they don't have trixie versions, disable them for now, then test again.

• Update Debian

For the following, say Yes to restarting services, and keep existing config files when prompted.

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

• If you use mdadm, stop and check EFI

Having more than one ESP (EFI System Partition) is an unusual setup. If you are certain you have only one ESP, move on to the next step.

If you have multiple ESPs for this copy of Debian, make sure they are all upgraded. Debian 13 uses grub 2.12.

• Reboot - If you use mdadm, only proceed if you know EFI is OK

sudo reboot

• Clean up old repos

sudo apt autoremove && sudo apt clean

• Modernize Debian sources

Optional but recommended: Switch to deb822 format for the sources.list. This will write /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources and /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-backports.sources

sudo apt modernize-sources

Caveat that trixie-backports might not have a Signed-By on some 3rd-party mirrors. You can fix this by manually setting Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian-backports.sources

• Clean up old /tmp

Optional: Remove files from the old /tmp directory. Debian 13 replaced it with a tmpfs, see https://www.debian.org/releases/trixie/release-notes/issues.en.html#the-temporary-files-directory-tmp-is-now-stored-in-a-tmpfs

On most systems /tmp will be empty or all-but. If you did store large files here, it can be worth the effort to clean up.

sudo mkdir /mnt/tmp-chk
sudo mount --bind / /mnt/tmp-chk
ls -lha /mnt/tmp-chk/tmp/

Remove files from /mnt/tmp-chk/tmp as you see fit, then unmount again

sudo umount /mnt/tmp-chk
sudo rm -rf /mnt/tmp-chk

Automated by Ansible

Caution: This Ansible playbook does not check EFI has been updated on all disks, on an mdadm setup with multiple ESPs. Only use on machines with only one ESP, or adjust this playbook to take care of upgrading all EFI partitions.

Config ansible.cfg:

[defaults]
interpreter_python = /usr/bin/python3

Playbook trixie.yml:

---
- name: Upgrade to Debian trixie
  hosts: all
  serial: 1
  gather_facts: false
  roles:
    - base/upgrade_trixie

Role base/upgrade_trixie/tasks/main.yml:

---
- name: Get distribution version
  setup:
    filter: ansible_distribution*
- name: Skip if not Debian 12
  meta: end_host
  when: ansible_distribution != 'Debian' or ansible_distribution_major_version != '12'
- name: apt clean
  apt:
    clean: yes
  become: yes
- name: Get filesystem facts
  setup:
    filter: ansible_mounts
- name: Fail if free space on / is below 5 GiB
  ansible.builtin.assert:
    that:
      - item.size_available > (5 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024)
    fail_msg: "Free disk space on {{ item.mount }} is below 5 GiB"
  loop: "{{ ansible_mounts }}"
  when: item.mount == "/"
- name: All apt packages up to date
  apt:
    upgrade: dist
    update_cache: yes
  become: yes
- name: apt autoremove
  apt:
    autoremove: yes
  become: yes
- name: apt clean
  apt:
    clean: yes
  become: yes
- name: Check if reboot required
  ansible.builtin.stat:
    path: /run/reboot-required
    get_checksum: no
  register: reboot_required_file
- name: Reboot if required
  ansible.builtin.reboot:
    msg: "Reboot initiated by Ansible"
    connect_timeout: 5
    reboot_timeout: 600
    pre_reboot_delay: 0
    post_reboot_delay: 60
    test_command: whoami
  when: reboot_required_file.stat.exists
  become: true
- name: Switch OS from bookworm to trixie
  ansible.builtin.replace:
    path: /etc/apt/sources.list
    regexp: 'bookworm'
    replace: 'trixie'
  become: yes
- name: Find all 3rd-party repos
  ansible.builtin.find:
    paths: /etc/apt/sources.list.d
    patterns: '*'
    recurse: no
  register: third_party_repos
- name: Switch 3rd-party repos from bookworm to trixie
  ansible.builtin.replace:
    path: "{{ item.path }}"
    regexp: 'bookworm'
    replace: 'trixie'
  loop: "{{ third_party_repos.files }}"
  loop_control:
    label: "{{ item.path }}"
  become: yes
- name: Use apt to move to trixie
  apt:
    upgrade: dist
    update_cache: yes
  become: yes
- name: Get distribution version
  setup:
    filter: ansible_distribution*
- name: Fail if not Debian 13
  assert:
    that:
      - ansible_distribution_major_version == '13'
    fail_msg: "Upgrade to Debian 13 failed"
- name: apt autoremove
  apt:
    autoremove: yes
  become: yes
- name: apt clean
  apt:
    clean: yes
  become: yes
- name: Reboot on trixie
  ansible.builtin.reboot:
    msg: "Reboot initiated by Ansible"
    connect_timeout: 5
    reboot_timeout: 600
    pre_reboot_delay: 0
    post_reboot_delay: 60
    test_command: whoami
  become: yes
- name: Modernize apt sources
  ansible.builtin.command:
    cmd: apt -y modernize-sources
  become: yes
- name: Pause for 5 minutes for staggered upgrades
  pause:
    minutes: 5

@mkd2380 You should adjust these .list files to use the trixie repo, if they have trixie releases. Then test that this worked with sudo apt update. Even better, use deb822 versions, .sources files. Fresh from your third-party repos or via sudo apt modernize-sources