[Sorry about the broken threads; I read this group on Usenet.]
On Tue, 30 Jan 2024 08:50:01 +0100
Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?= <2695bd53d...@ewoof.net> wrote:
> On 29 Jan 2024 19:54 -0800, from cgi...@surfnaked.ca (Charlie Gibbs):
>
>> Today I took a thorough backup of my laptop and dove in, using the
>> instructions at https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUpgrade as a guide.
>
> Did you actually follow _that_ page, or did you read and follow the
> _release notes_ as it says near the top of that page?
Mea culpa. I used the wiki.
> As a rule the release notes for a release should be considered the
> authoritative truth about upgrading to any given release from the
> immediately preceding release. (Skipping releases is not supported and
> strongly discouraged.) There are also meaningful differences in system
> setup between 11 and 12, not least non-free-firmware (which, were it
> just that, would be easy enough to add after the fact).
Noted. Hopefully I'll remember to go there first the next time I do
an upgrade, rather than following the first page that comes up in my
search engine.
> A plain Debian release upgrade should not switch your desktop
> environment on its own, and last I looked Xfce wasn't yet compatible
> with Wayland, so although I haven't looked in detail, it seems likely
> that your issues are related to something which you did or did not do
> during the upgrade process.
That seems the obvious conclusion. I was pretty gobsmacked, though,
when my system came up in a totally different graphical environment.
Even though I've had strange things happen in other upgrades, this one
takes it to a whole new level. I'm obviously playing with dynamite.
> Do you have a "script" transcript of the upgrade session (as the
> release notes also strongly recommend [1] in case there are problems)?
>
> [1]:
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html#record-session
Alas, no. Again, something to remember for next time.
Although just about everything seems to be there, I feel uneasy
enough about the whole thing that I think I'll just re-format the
root partition (while leaving the separate /home partition intact)
and install Bookworm from scratch. VirtualBox, which I use heavily,
has disappeard, so I'm going to have to re-install some packages
anyway. This isn't the first time I've had to do this; when
I tried to upgrade this same laptop from (IIRC) Stretch to Buster,
I was left with an unbootable machine.
The takeaway (for me, anyway) is that upgrading a system is a
complicated and hazardous process which requires a lot of study
before attempting it. Often it goes smoothly, but when it
doesn't I"m in for a world of hurt. So it goes.
Once I get this mess sorted out, I have one more machine to
upgrade. I'll follow the release notes to the letter then,
and see whether I have better luck.
--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | Life is perverse.
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | It can be beautiful -
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | but it won't.
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lily Tomlin
