On 30 Jan 2024 10:14 -0800, from cgi...@surfnaked.ca (Charlie Gibbs): > [Sorry about the broken threads; I read this group on Usenet.]
At least you kept the Subject line intact and provided solid quotes, making manual linking of threads manageable. > VirtualBox, which I use heavily, has disappeard, so I'm going to > have to re-install some packages anyway. I'm pretty sure VirtualBox has not been shipped by Debian for quite a while because of its licensing status, so I guess you're relying on a third party package for that? (Probably Oracle's.) That's another thing that can easily cause complications during an upgrade, which is why the release notes recommend to disable third-party repositories before upgrading between releases and holding off on upgrading those packages until after the main system has been upgraded successfully; another detail that doesn't seem to be mentioned on the wiki page. Semi-unrelated, but you might want to consider switching to KVM virtualization instead; it's supported by the stock kernel, making things easier. AQEMU is a fairly VirtualBox-like GUI front-end for it, and VMs can be converted (though especially if you're virtualizing Windows, I'm not sure how it takes to the changes in virtualized hardware). I switched from VirtualBox to KVM a while ago and haven't looked back. > 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. I don't think I would go that far. My experience is that generally Debian upgrades are very smooth; what can cause complications is if you're not running a pure Debian system, especially if you have out-of-tree packages installed which integrate into the kernel (graphics drivers, virtualization, file system support, ...). Not closely following the upgrade instructions in the release notes is then likely to further compound any issues. > 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. For what it's worth, back when I upgraded my system from Bullseye to Bookworm (I think around the time 12.1 came out) closely following the release notes, the process was smooth, including Xfce and X11. -- Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”
