Debian – How to fully upgrade Debian from command line (including release_version)

aptdebianrolling-releasesoftware-updatesupgrade

I desire to totally upgrade everything in Debian:Stable including the release version, to the newest stable release available:

  • Packages update
  • Packages upgrade
  • D:S minor_version
  • D:S major_version
  • D:S release_version

Each action will be done respective to others in that entire recursive (monthly/yearly) single process, while I assume that release_version will surly be the last.

In other words, I'd like to create a "fully rolling release stable Debian".

I do it when having at least weekly/daily automatic backups (per month) of all the data so if something was broken I restore a backup.

What will be the command to "brutally" upgrade everything whatsoever including doing a release upgrade? I was thinking about:

apt-get update -y && apt-get upgrade -y && apt-get dist-upgrade -y

Best Answer

The Debian operating system is not bleeding edge. It enjoys great stability when installed, on supported hardware. However, as a result, the software that Debian uses and that is in its repo's are slightly older, than those in say, Ubuntu. Even though Ubuntu is Debian based, it is constantly being updated and things are getting tweaked day to day sometimes. If you successfully complete the commands you listed, everything should be up to date and considered the newest stable version. If you are however looking to go from Debian 8 to 9. The process is more involved.

After doing the above commands:

  • If everything went smoothly, perform database sanity and consistency checks for partially installed, missing and obsolete packages:

    dpkg -C

  • If no issues are reported, check what packages are held back:

    apt-mark showhold

Packages On Hold will not be upgraded, which may cause inconsistencies after Stretch upgrade. Before you move to the next part, it is recommended to fix all issues produced by both above commands.

  • Make backup of your sources.list:

    cp /etc/apt/sources.list /etc/apt/sources.list_backup

  • Change to stretch;

    sed -i 's/jessie/stretch/g' /etc/apt/sources.list

  • Update

    apt-get update

  • List Upgradeable:

    apt list --upgradable 
    Note that if you see anything that alarms you at this point you can undo everything in reverse.

After the following commands there is no undoing:

apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade

More information can be found: HERE

Related Question