So Trixie aka Debian 13 got released! Many moons ago, I made some changes to my sources and ended up with the following. Will good things happen when I run sudoapt full-upgrade? I’m hoping to end up on a Debian stable system, i.e. Trixie. I suspect a little something is still required, right? Eventually I will have to change the mntre.sources, I suspect. But when? And how will I find out?
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/debian.sources
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie
Components: main contrib non-free
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb
URIs: http://deb.debian.org/debian/
Suites: trixie-updates
Components: main contrib non-free
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
# Modernized from /etc/apt/sources.list
Types: deb
URIs: http://security.debian.org/debian-security/
Suites: trixie-security
Components: main contrib non-free
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/mntre.sources
Types: deb
URIs: https://mntre.com/reform-debian-repo
Suites: reform
Components: main
Architectures: arm64
Trusted: yes
The problem will come once the packages in the MNT Debian repository get built against versions that are not in Trixie and thus become uninstallable on your system as a result. The MNT repository is only for use with Debian unstable.
A while ago I went through the process of migrating from sid to trixie by downgrading, effectively ending up with a system that is as if I had started with a trixie system image from https://reform.debian.net/, with a lot of help from @josch.
I would not recommend that process though. It’s quite messy, takes a lot of manual interventions and might still leave your system in a weird state that’s difficult to debug. After a lot of work, it does run smoothly though.
If you want Debian stable on your Pocket, save yourself that adventure and start with that Trixie image and move your data over to the fresh system.
A new installation would be cleanest. If you go that route, do not use Debian installer but use the normal MNT Setup wizard that comes with the system image.
If you want to keep your existing system, then you can try the downgrading method which will not be as messy as when @selfawaresoup did it because thanks to her feedback I was able to fix a number of bugs. But downgrading is always dangerous.
You can switch your current system to Trixie from reform.debian.net without downgrading by using the kernel from trixie-backports though. But not today. It requires me to have sufficient free-time to finish this:
Once I have tested this on A311D and i.MX 8MQ I can merge this and then we can get the kernel which will probably end up in Trixie Backports on reform.debian.net as well. And then you can upgrade to Trixie (+backports) instead of downgrading.
I would also recommend kernel 6.16 from Trixie Backports to users of RK3588. I am successfully running 6.12 on the Pocket Reform with RK3588 but there are issues with RK3588 in classic Reform with 6.12.
@kensanata tell me which route you want to go and I can assist.
But please also everybody remember that:
reform.debian.net is not maintained by MNT so technically it is off-topic for this forum and I’d like to keep talk about my website to a minimum
reform.debian.net is a one-person show and it stands and falls with me having the time to maintain it. Running Debian stable is nice (I do it) but things are only as stable as I can make them…
Where is the best place to discuss reform.debian.net ? If that’s simply “email and IRC” just let me know
I am, frankly, delighted that your unofficial project exists and very much looking forward to trying it on my MNT computers. Debian stable plus backported kernel and emacs is my absolute favorite computing environment. Though my time is extremely limited and I am not particularly good at computer systems, I’d like to help out with reform.debian.net however I can…
Yes it should! Thank you for spotting it. Fixed here:
I think it depends on what you want to discuss. If it doesn’t get out-of-hand, I think @minute will not veto this forum as a place to do such a discussion as other distros are also talked about here and as far as MNT is concerned, reform.debian.net is “another distro”.
@kensanata tell me which route you want to go and I can assist.
Thanks, @josch, this is a very kind offer. After reading the responses so far, however, I think my best bet is to simply stick with Debian unstable. My goal is to have a less stressful time and moving to Trixie seems very stressful. I was hoping to make some changes to apt sources and do a full-upgrade, maybe answer some questions and resolve some conflicts. Maybe some other day.
Just my humble opinion:
I’d rather invest the time only once by migration to Debian stable (Trixie atm) and afterwards running a Reform that is as stable as a Reform can get at the moment.
With Debian unstable you will likely have troubles every now and then because of the untested packages and/or update procedures.
PS:
I’m running my Classic Reform with Debian Trixie right from the start (which is only a bit more than a week). It works as Debian stable should work.
FYI I just migrated my main system (A311D classic Reform) that I am typing this on from Bookworm to Trixie by replacing bookworm with trixie in my apt’s sources.list for both vanilla Debian and reform.debian.net. The only issues I had were that both sway and wayfire had some changes in their config files which required some small adjustments but the system booted fine and thus let me easily carry out these fixes.
