What to expect from Debian/Trixie

#1

Post by exiguus » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 1:27 PM UTC

What to expect from Debian/Trixie
michael-prokop.at

Re: What to expect from Debian/Trixie

#2

Post by sugarpimpdorsey » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 3:53 PM UTC

Fair warning: the Trixie update does not allow you to roll back. It is in theory possible but practically it not only fails every single time, but leaves the system in an inconsistent and broken state. (Code for 'soon to be unbootable').

What this means is when you find out stuff breaks, like drivers and application software, and decide the upgrade was a bad idea, you are fucked.

More notably, some of the upgrade is irreversible - like MySQL/MariaDB. The database binary format is upgraded during the upgrade. So if you discover something else broke, and you want to go back, it's going to take some work.

Ask me how I know.

Re: What to expect from Debian/Trixie

#3

Post by bityard » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 3:56 PM UTC

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #2

Fair warning: the Trixie update does not allow you to roll back. It is in theory possible but practically it not only fails every single time, but leaves the system in an inconsistent and broken state. (Code for 'soon to be unbootable'). What this means is when you find out stuff breaks, like drivers and application software, and decide the upgrade was a bad idea, you are fucked. More notably, some of the upgrade is…

That has never been supported: https://wiki.debian.org/SystemDowngrade

Re: What to expect from Debian/Trixie

#4

Post by sugarpimpdorsey » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 4:00 PM UTC

bityard wrote: post #3

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #2

Fair warning: the Trixie update does not allow you to roll back. It is in theory possible but practically it not only fails every single time, but leaves the system in an inconsistent and broken state. (Code for 'soon to be unbootable'). What this means is when you find out stuff breaks, like drivers and application software, and decide the upgrade was a bad idea, you are fucked. More notably, some of the upgrade is…

That has never been supported: https://wiki.debian.org/SystemDowngrade

I said possible, not supported.

Too many bits of 'advice' on Stack Overflow, etc. claiming it's possible as top Google results.

I'm here to say unequivocally: it does not work, will not work, and will leave the system in an irreversibly broken state. Do not attempt.

Re: What to expect from Debian/Trixie

#5

Post by josephscott » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 4:02 PM UTC

"The temporary-files directory /tmp is now stored in a tmpfs" - https://www.debian.org/releases/trixie/release-notes/issues....

I am not a fan of that as a default. I'd rather default to cheaper disk space than more limited and expensive memory.

Re: What to expect from Debian/Trixie

#6

Post by blueflow » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 4:07 PM UTC

TIL there are 14 subtly different naming schemes for network interfaces[1]. "predictable" my ass.

[1] https://manpages.debian.org/testing/systemd/systemd.net-nami...

Re: What to expect from Debian/Trixie

#7

Post by api » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 4:12 PM UTC

josephscott wrote: post #5

"The temporary-files directory /tmp is now stored in a tmpfs" - https://www.debian.org/releases/trixie/release-notes/issues.... I am not a fan of that as a default. I'd rather default to cheaper disk space than more limited and expensive memory.

Wait... that means a misbehaving program can cause out of memory errors easily by filling up /tmp?

That's a very bad default.

Re: What to expect from Debian/Trixie

#8

Post by gilbertbw » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 4:13 PM UTC

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #2

Fair warning: the Trixie update does not allow you to roll back. It is in theory possible but practically it not only fails every single time, but leaves the system in an inconsistent and broken state. (Code for 'soon to be unbootable'). What this means is when you find out stuff breaks, like drivers and application software, and decide the upgrade was a bad idea, you are fucked. More notably, some of the upgrade is…

The page about upgrading [0] does have this warning:

  Back up your data
  
  Performing a release upgrade is never without risk. The upgrade may fail, leaving the system in a non-functioning state. USERS SHOULD BACKUP ALL DATA before attempting a release upgrade. DebianStability contains more information on these steps.

[0] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUpgrade

Re: What to expect from Debian/Trixie

#9

Post by paulv » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 4:18 PM UTC

api wrote: post #7

josephscott wrote: post #5

"The temporary-files directory /tmp is now stored in a tmpfs" - https://www.debian.org/releases/trixie/release-notes/issues.... I am not a fan of that as a default. I'd rather default to cheaper disk space than more limited and expensive memory.

Wait... that means a misbehaving program can cause out of memory errors easily by filling up /tmp? That's a very bad default.

The default configuration for tmpfs is to "only" use 50% of physical ram, which still isn't great, but it's something.

Re: What to expect from Debian/Trixie

#10

Post by paulv » Wed, Jul 23, 2025, 4:19 PM UTC

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #2

Fair warning: the Trixie update does not allow you to roll back. It is in theory possible but practically it not only fails every single time, but leaves the system in an inconsistent and broken state. (Code for 'soon to be unbootable'). What this means is when you find out stuff breaks, like drivers and application software, and decide the upgrade was a bad idea, you are fucked. More notably, some of the upgrade is…

> Ask me how I know.

What problems did you have that made you want to roll back the update?