On Mon 19 Aug 2024 at 20:26:35 (-0400), Gary Dale wrote:
> On 2024-08-19 19:24, Mike wrote:
> > Bob Mroczka wrote:
> > > I attempted to upgrade my system from debian 11 to 12 following the
> > > instructions provided at
> > > https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/update-upgrade-debian-11-to-debian-12-bookworm.
> > In the future, consider using https://www.debian.org/release/stable/ and
> > such. cyberciti.biz usually just copies content from elsewhere, to sell ads
> > against it. It may not be authoritative.
> >
> > > Do you have any suggestions for further identifying the cause of this
> > > and/or resolving this without recovering from back up?
> > My only thought is that maybe, somehow, you're running a mix of incompatible
> > libraries and executables, some upgraded and some not. You might go into
> > `aptitude`, if it runs, and see what it thinks.
> >
> > The "rescue" option on the Debian image may be able to help you mount and
> > install a proper installation on your existing disks, since it runs its
> > own copy of Linux on a ramdisk. But it's been a long time since I've used
> > it, so I forget the procedure.
> >
> Further to Mike's suggestion, sometimes going back to apt-get instead
> of apt can work.
>
> Also, since the full-upgrade step has failed, you should be able to
> reboot and try again. One of the kernels should be able to work.
> However, you can also boot to a command prompt, which might be safer.
>
> To fix dpkg, I suspect that it's the tar package that needs to be
> fixed. That may just be a single binary that you can copy from another
> system.
It might be worth looking for any corruption with:
# cd /
# md5sum -c /var/lib/dpkg/info/{dpkg,gzip,tar}.md5sums
Or use a sledgehammer and check the whole lot:
# md5sum -c /var/lib/dpkg/info/*.md5sums | grep -v ': OK$'
though expect some output from such things as diversions and some
empty foo.md5sums files. (I'm assuming that debsums hasn't been
installed.)
> Worst case scenario is to do a fresh install of bookworm. If your
> /home is in a separate partition, that should be easy and safe. Just
> don't let it reformat or erase /home. Use manual partitioning.
>
> I personally don't like using sudo for everything. When I have more
> than one command, I just do a sudo bash and run them as root.
>
> Looking at the cybercit.biz article, it's doing some stuff that I find
> a little strange. Step 3 should just ask you to run sed to replace
> bullseye with bookworm - less chance for errors.
To be fair, the long version (rather than the summary at the top)
does suggest this, and adds one reason for using an editor for this
particular upgrade: the addition of non-free-firmware.
> And I don't like step 5 at all. The difference between versions often
> includes packages being replaced. Upgrading without new packages seems
> like asking for trouble.
This step (which is labelled step 4 in the long version¹) corresponds
to §4.4.5 Minimal system upgrade in the bookworm Release Notes,
so like it or not, it's official.
¹ Step 4 in the summary is the last action in the long version's step 3.
Cheers,
David.
