HOWTO: Upgrade Raspberry Pi OS from Bookworm to Trixie

gistfile1.txt

### WARNING: READ CAREFULLY BEFORE ATTEMPTING ###
#
# Officially, this is not recommended. YMMV
# https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/bookworm-the-new-version-of-raspberry-pi-os/
#
# This mostly works if you are on 64bit. You are on your own if you are on 32bit or mixed 64/32bit
#
# Credit to anfractuosity and fgimenezm for figuring out additional details for kernels
#

# Make sure everything is up-to-date
sudo apt-get -y update && sudo DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get -y dist-upgrade

# Point to bookworm repos instead
sudo sed -i -e 's/bookworm/trixie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo sed -i -e 's/bookworm/trixie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list

# Contents of /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-updates main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
# Uncomment deb-src lines below then 'apt-get update' to enable 'apt-get source'
#deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-updates main contrib non-free

# Contents of /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list
deb http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/ trixie main
# Uncomment line below then 'apt-get update' to enable 'apt-get source'
#deb-src http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/ trixie main

# Do actual update. See also https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=389477
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade -y -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confdef" -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confnew" --purge --auto-remove rpd-wayland-all+ rpd-x-all+
sudo apt -y clean && sudo apt -y autoremove

# Reboot
sudo reboot

# Modernize sources
sudo apt modernize-sources

# Make sure the following is in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.sources. The Signed-by: may be missing
Types: deb
URIs: http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/
Suites: trixie
Components: main
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/raspberrypi-archive-keyring.gpg

# Remove the raspi.list.bak after confirming that everything works
sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list.bak

Did you upgrade the kernel? That would be a starting point. What does „no boot“ mean, any details? Otherwise, roll back by restoring your backup.

I still have 6.12.34+rpt-rpi-2712 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.34-1+rpt1 (2025-06-26) this kernel how did you update?

Cam i suggest you to replace init-ramfstools with tiny-initramfs?
I'm the author of piccolinux

@Maverynthia I fixed the signature issue with the following

sudo curl -fsSL https://packages.microsoft.com/keys/microsoft.asc \
  | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/microsoft.gpg
sudo chmod 644 /etc/apt/keyrings/microsoft.gpg
sudo apt-get update

I just followed your guide on a fresh install with RP4 and everything works fine.
Thanks

Thank you for this guide, it worked for me.
A couple of notes on gistfile1.txt:

• The last line rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list.bak should have sudo.
• For me on a Raspberry Pi 1, I needed to add Architectures: armhf to /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.sources & /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspbian.sources else apt complained.

Awesome!
I had an issue with apt and lib nettle during the install: No http request anymore.

/usr/lib/apt/methods/http: error while loading shared libraries: libnettle.so.8: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory E: Method http has died unexpectedly! E: Sub-process http returned an error code (127) E: Method /usr/lib/apt/methods/http did not start correctly

Fixed by rsync from another computer:
http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/pool/main/n/nettle/libnettle8t64_3.10.1-1_arm64.deb

And then sudo dpkg -i libnettle8t64_3.10.1-1_arm64.deb

I upgraded and now running "uname -a" gives me:
Linux raspi5 6.12.47+rpt-rpi-2712 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.12.47-1+rpt1 (2025-09-16) aarch64 GNU/Linux

How come it's showing Debian instead of Trixie now?

Now with the official announcement (https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/trixie-the-new-version-of-raspberry-pi-os/) out and the linked upgrade topic (https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=392376) I am wondering, which guide has the better (confirmed working, more robust) approach:

• A) This unofficial guide here https://gist.github.com/jauderho/5f73f16cac28669e56608be14c41006c
• B) This official guide https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=392376

Did not fully compare them yet but just wondering related to the differences what's the reason for them.

I jumped on it and used this gist for upgrading from bookworm to trixie. I am running a Pi5 8GB headless (no UI) and am mostly using lots of docker containers.

All went smoothly and so far everything I looked at works just fine (including docker).

Thanks!

Maybe nice to know this is not working with docker and docker-compose. The upgrade will fail.

docker-compose is now part of the docker CLI (accessible as docker compose no dash, no additional package needed). Uninstall docker-compose before the upgrade. You no longer need it. If your upgrade fails you can force uninstall with sudo dpkg --remove --force-remove-reinstreq docker-compose and continue the upgrade process.

Now with the official announcement (https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/trixie-the-new-version-of-raspberry-pi-os/) out and the linked upgrade topic (https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=392376) I am wondering, which guide has the better (confirmed working, more robust) approach:

* A) This unofficial guide here https://gist.github.com/jauderho/5f73f16cac28669e56608be14c41006c

* B) This official guide https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=392376

Did not fully compare them yet but just wondering related to the differences what's the reason for them.

For me the official guide did not work and I ended up with a missing Desktop Environment. However, following this gist instead worked perfectly!

Anyone try this on lite? Would that just be excluding rpd-wayland-all+ rpd-x-all+

Yup, I did it on headless lite and just skipped the Wayland & X stuff - it worked well.

my RPI 4, broke the book, a lot of modules stop working included the internet, so I had to flash using RPI image, and then lost (I have a backup) all the currenct settings