Bookworm on "Raspberry Pi Model B Plus Rev 1.2", OK?

There is, of course no supported way to move from Bullseye to bookworm, other than full reinstall.

Even though they used to give notes on how to do it previously. then don't for this move. I would recommend a full reinstall anyway!

Codename confusion? I can’t keep them straight myself.

Bullseye = Debian 11 Bookworm = Debian 12

Or just install this package

That's not a problem, a clean install followed by restoring my /home will be just about all that's needed. I also have an 'added' list of the packages I have installed in addition to the base system. There's only half a dozen or so.

Some stuff was pretty different. I installed bookworm because it was new and shiny, Its taken some time to get it stable.

But I am beginning to think it will take the strain.

Yes. I write a file called 'system.txt' to document everything I did to get from fresh install to where I am now.

It is almost a runnable script :-)

Save your old SD card - just in case!

Agreed. SD cards are not expensive.

Really?

I could easily update Debian11/armel to Debian12 and then even transgrade[0] it to Devuan5.

What is RasPIan doing differently now?

____________

I don't know what they are doing but it fuc^W failed badly when I did it.

I have done numerous x86 in situ Debian upgrades on laptops, desktops and VMs in data centres. All have been upgraded from Debian 9 to 10, then 11 and then 12 as new versions become available. Follow the guide on the Debian website and it just works.

But 11 to 12 on a Pi Zero W really mucked up. Sure I ended up with something that would say it was Debian 12 and seemed to work. But after a while I noticed the networking was a mixture of NetworkMangler and old scripts that was an unbelievable spaghetti of mixed stuff. Also whatever repos it was using, it didn't do kernel updates. And yes, I checked the repos were correct in /etc/apt.

I had successfully upgraded in place from 10 to 11 on the same Pi Zero W before. But 11 to 12 was a disaster.

No surprises a clean install and applying my changes brought me a v12 that works and isn't a mixture of 11 and 12.

I don't have enough minutes left on Earth to worry why and find out what went wrong. Next time I will back up the 12 image + changes and updates and try in situ update to see if 12>13 works. If it looks slightly iffy I'll reinstall again. And I have the backup image should I ever need to go back.

And I know I'm not the only person who found in situ update to 12 failed.

Scary. That sounds like just an other reason not to go back.

Or I might find out what's the problem later.

It hasn't been Raspian for a long time. It is now Raspberry Pi OS

Wit the changes from Bullseye to Bookworm, Raspberry Pi engineers reckoned it was too easy to break the install, and did not want to support lots of broken installs where people do not have the skills to fix. If you have the skills, and a good backup, give it a try, but you won't get help from Raspberry Pi engineers

I've used this guide on dozens of Pi's running both 32 bit and 64 bit Bullseye and have not had any problems:-

The reason the Raspbian people don't want you do this, is they have made some big changes to the packages and the way Bookworm is set up, and while you could reproduce these after an in-place upgrade, it's far easier to start from scratch with a new image.

Some of the major changes are:-

• rsyslog not installed, only journald
• Network Manager for setting up networking instead of dhdcp/wpa
• Wayland installed by default, although can revert to X11

If you are running the Lite version the last one wont be an issue.

In the end it comes down to the choice continuing to do things the way they've been since the Pi 1, or following Raspbian's currently supported new way.

---druck

I've done major upgrades to remote Pi's and while it was a bit of a squeaky bottom time, they all worked and came back up with the new OS.

Ironically it was a minor update to one of my remote Pi's which resulted it not coming back on the VPN. I had to then drive an hour to sort it out, and found it had just hung on rebooting, as can occasionally happen, and was fine after a power cycle.

Using an internet connected switched socket would have fixed that without having to be there, but I still haven't got around to buying one.

---druck

This is why I like to reserve a second OS partition when initially setting up filesystem volumes, so I can put an entirely different system there without disturbing the user files on /home.

But why would you need to, just to do a Debian upgrade?

I've considered trying a couple of times but since it's all working OK and I don't really **need** to move it to Bookworm I've not bothered.

My remote Pi is a five hour drive and a ferry crossing to France away!

That's a good idea, and it would have other uses for me too, I could switch the shore power connection remotely which might be handy if the solar panels aren't keeping the batteries properly charged. The shore power is disconnected when I'm away to minimise galvanic corrosion.