1mo ago

All the troubles with Debian upgrade

So a new major version of Debian has been released, and now I see a lot of complaints about various issues stemming from an upgrade. I do not remember this many after an LTS Ubuntu version. I don't want to rush to conclusions like "Ubuntu has money for better quality assurance". I can easily come up with explanations for why these statistics can be skewed, like "Ubuntu-loving plebeians do not come to complain to elite Lemmy users about their puny problems". I'm curious what you think?

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If I had to guess on why people get issues during updates I'd say it's because they add a million third-party repos that point to the specific version of Debian they were running and now that they've upgraded they've got tons of outdated packages from those repos fudging up their system.
- That's why you're supposed to remove 3rd party repos before you update, but nobody reads the release notes anymore, I guess.
  
  Doesn’t the upgrade manager of Debian disable them automatically, like Ubuntu does?
  
  I read the release notes and followed all the relevant instructions and had zero issues, was a very smooth and easy process.
  
  Why doesn't apk have a routine that disables 3rd party repos when doing a full system update?
- What do you think, is this release on par with previous ones regarding the amount of complaints?
I used/tried Ubuntu a few times -just because some solutions announce it as their supported platform- but I got tired of how they push snaps, and so I stay on Debian. Last week I went to deb13 on various machines and so far had no other task then fixing deprecated python functions in my own scripts, which isn't abnormal. The one 'issue' I had was a PHP version mismatch in an apache2 config. So I'm (still) happy with Debian! And like @eugenia@lemmy.ml wrote, every 2 years (give or take) a fresh install is how I like to do it.
- Congrats on the mostly smooth sailing!
  What do you think of the experiences other people are having?
No experience with debian 13 yet, but I once upgraded a server from 7 to 12 without a single issue which was quite amazing.
- Same, I have servers I've continuously upgraded from Debian 6 to 12 over the years, without reinstallation. Has gone without issue.
  
  Do you think servers have it easy compared to personal computers? No pesky audio/video cards, bluetooth, etc…
- Wait, like in one step from 7 to 12? That would be amazing indeed!
  
  No, one version at a time. Took only an hour or so.
I've been doing debian upgrades without significant issues. With debian 13 I find I'm getting some deprecation messages from python and I have had to make some small code patches to fix them. I see that as more of a python issue than a debian issue.
- Sure, this is fair!
  Regarding this release, do you see more posts about it, compared with others?
- that's where most of my 'issues' come from when upgrading an old debian.. upstream version changes to major software packages (python, php, even apache 1.x to 2 back in the day) that require some manual intervention
  
  Of course it will be like that with any distro.
Ubuntu has issues in every LTS (this time with APT version shipped) because Ubuntu releases are based on Debian Sid (basically unreleased Debian software which they "patch" later including unstable version of tools).
I suffer this in my job every time a Ubuntu LTS is shipped previous to the release of the Debian version equivalent to it (Ubuntu 24.04 is Debian 13 with mixed versions of packages and "patches") and a customer or a teammate upgrade a container-image or workstation to it...
I even use Debian new versions after either 1 year or the first .1 release.
- Certainly when you use a system on many hosts, you have more visibility into its issues. Do you also use Debian in a similar situation to compare them?
  What do you think about the number of Debian complaints on Lemmy?
  
  I dont usually see many despiste the typical arch linux, fedora or similar "exotic" distro user who used it years ago.
  Or maybe someone who suddenly jumped into it.
  I use Debian in container images and servers. Almost everything I touch whenever I have the option.
  I only use Ubuntu when expectated, required or asked specifically by customer or such.
I wait for the first point release to upgrade, usually most of the issues have been worked out by then.
- This is a wise strategy used by patient people!
  Do you think the number of less wise Debian users has changed in recent years?
I use Debian-Testing, so I never go from a major release to another, and it's very stable that way. But yes, a big upgrade is never smooth with Debian, even if Debian itself is very stable (when installed from scratch). I think the solution is a clean install every 2 years. Or use Debian-Testing, so things don't blow up from a small release to another. Even Linux Mint is not very stable from a major release to another (meaning, from one LTS to another). But Ubuntu is more stable between interim releases, but also not very stable between LTS releases.
So either you go with a "stable-ish" rolling release like Debian-Testing (which in my opinion is the most stable rolling release distro), or you re-install every 2 years.
- Not my experience. I'm managing 6 different clients and around 200 servers with debian 11-13. Update problems are most of the times caused by incompatible packages / repos. Other then that and a few times some changes in configuration files with new options I hardly ever have problems.
  I don't think you have to reinstall your system every two years, you just need to be careful to not create a frankendebian by adding repos villy vanilly and you are good to go.
- I didn't have problem updating debian stable to a next version. I got problems when I jumped 2 stables at once. Which was to be expected.
- Thank you, these are enlightening observations!
  From what you see online, is this release on par with the previous ones?
  
  yeah it's a good one
“Ubuntu has money for better quality assurance”
That's utter BS, money does not equal quality.
I just borked an Ubuntu Noble installation by running apt upgrade on it. Yeah it's ZFS-based, why didn't Canonical ensure the upgrade would be smooth?
- Of course it was tongue-in-cheek, I hope you didn’t take the "elite Lemmy users" seriously ;)
  While personal stories could be enlightening, I’m more curious about the statistics
Among the people I know in real life, some post (non-tech stuff) to Reddit, some write reviews on Yelp, and some have called customer support hotlines for tech products. But none have ever posted online to ask for tech help, at least not to my awareness. Neither did I back when I used Windows, and not for a couple years even after switching to Linux.
I suspect most Ubuntu users are among that common crowd. They might look up an issue on the internet, but expect to ask for help from a dedicated support center. Or can't be bothered to sign up for an account and post to the places that can answer their questions, which are usually very "techy" and possibly even intimidating to beginners.
As for my setup, the upgrade from Debian 12 to 13 went very smoothly. I had to fix a few obscure config files, but nobody else really touches them, and it didn't stop it from booting. Replaced a deprecated package with its Flatpak equivalent as well. Only unsolved issue is the xfce4-panel consuming all of one core on occasion for no apparent reason.
- Thank you for answering the actual question! This is a new angle I haven’t considered before.
It's been out for 10 days? As an elite lemmy user, I'm not going to gamble my setup on any 10 day old release.
- Sound strategy. So no arguing.
  That said, Debian 13 has effectively been available for many months now. It did not just spring into the world as Debian is developed quite slowly and completely out in the open. The biggest difference when it becomes “official” is that a wider audience tries it.
  So we cannot all just “wait and see”. Somebody has to use it and report back.
  
  Thanks to differences in personalities and personal circumstances, there are usually enough people on the spectrum of risk aversion to test the pre-releases
- Spoken with true wisdom!
  Do you think the number of less wise Debian users has changed in recent years?
I've happily upgraded to Debian 13 with no issues (other than having to fix some of my python projects to deal with python 3.13)
- Happy to hear that!
  But what is your opinion about the amount of complaints you see recently?
  
  I haven't heard any. What have you heard?
... plebeians do not come to complain to elite Lemmy users about their puny problems ...
how does one identify elite lemmy users?
- It was an exaggerated version of "the registered users of Lemmy are ~~all the elite~~ smart enough to avoid Ubuntu"
- Well I use Arch...
  (jk debian but maybe arch someday)
  
  i got downvoted earlier for suggesting that "i use arch" slogan was a thing. lol
One of the biggest reasons I won’t use Ubuntu on anything I care about is because I had numerous upgrade issues with it.
- I hope that you have found something that works better for you.
  What do you think about my observation though?
  
  I have! Upgrading from Fedora 41 to 42 worked well on the 3 machines I use it on.
  I think most people who use Ubuntu, in general, aren’t posting about their experience with it online. So, yes, I’d say I agree with your observation.
Personally I had zero issues with upgrading my server to Debian 13; it's an installation dating back to Debian 9 or 10 with a lot of services installed.
The only inconvenience I had was that somehow Transmission 4.1.0 beta made it into debian stable, and beta clients are usually not allowed by private trackers. I switched to deluge and called it a day.
- I need to do this, too. My server is still running Debian 11. Sounds like I need to update it to 12, then to 13 - ie do not directly go from 11 to 13.
- What do you think of the observation that Linux@lemmy.ml had a surprising amount of reports of bungled upgrades?
  
  My take: There was one user that kept making post after post after post as they tried to upgrade, which made it seem like there were more issues than there were
  Scrolling through it right now, every support question from the last week appears to be from the same person
I had absolutely no problems updating Debian to 13 from 11 to 12 to 13 one after the other. I also had no problems upgrading between Debian versions when I ran it as my main driver from the Potato release up until Ubuntu came out. Conversely, when I used Ubuntu from its original Warty release to around 2012 or so I had issues on literally every single version upgrade. Most relatively minor, but more than a couple requiring full reinstalls.
I would bet money that the vast majority of those having problems upgrading Debian are on "FrankenDebian" systems. Not all, but I am confident the majority are.
2/3 of my computers were completely fine after upgrading. Unfortunately, the one that was fucked was the one I game on.
- Oh, that’s bad luck… Sorry to hear that!
It's fine, I'm don't know why you're trying to generate shade with this post and comments.
- What other hoops should I have jumped through to avoid being perceived as "generate shade"? I thought I did my best.
Ive had Ubuntu shit itself 6 different times after upgrade. People still use ubuntu??
- I had smooth sailing with Ubuntu for many years, but I don't judge other people's choices
  
  I would bet that any upgrade bug that happens in Debian is just as likely, if not more, to happen in Ubuntu. The most frequent issue which happened to me was not enough space on the boot partition for the new kernel which somehow never got figured out in a seamless manner.
  You also wont get posts when people’s upgrades go well. So even if 99.99% upgrade fine, the .01% are going to go and complain since they dont have the experience to fix things themselves.
It's always hit or miss depending on the system. I upgraded one machine to Proxmox 9 and a VM and my VPS to Debian 13, the only one that gave me some trouble was my VM and that's because I had an older package installed that was being a pain to remove because of dependency issues.

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