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 update && sudo apt-get 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
sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade && 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
rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspbi.list.bak

Adapted from https://gist.github.com/jauderho/6b7d42030e264a135450ecc0ba521bd8

Make sure you verify accordingly before you reboot.

How much is known on the changes so far?

I‘m really looking forward to use this. Installed a bare metal server with 12/Bookworm few weeks ago completely from scratch with then migrating all services step by step. HELL NO. JUST NO! What an absolute pain in the evening. Reinstalling regularly is really not an option, upgrading is the path to choose. Saves a few weekends of time. Usually we have other things to do in life too. For this I deeply don‘t like the „upgrades are not supported“ meh.

So to sum up: thanks for providing this! Looking forward to use it once enough is known on the changes and first upgrades have been tested successfully.

Will definitely try this when official Raspi OS Trixie is released. Thanks!

@bcutter I just upgraded a spare RPi I had lying around yesterday with no issue. So I would say that if you have a fairly stock setup that this should mostly work.

I noticed this warning when doing an update.

# sudo apt-get -y update --audit
Hit:1 http://security.debian.org/debian-security trixie-security InRelease
Hit:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie InRelease                             
Hit:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-updates InRelease                     
Hit:4 http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian trixie InRelease                    
Reading package lists... Done
W: http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/dists/trixie/InRelease: Policy will reject signature within a year, see --audit for details
A: http://archive.raspberrypi.org/debian/dists/trixie/InRelease: Sub-process /usr/bin/sqv returned an error code (1), error message is:
   Signing key on CF8A1AF502A2AA2D763BAE7E82B129927FA3303E is not bound:
              No binding signature at time 2025-04-25T12:00:23Z
     because: Policy rejected non-revocation signature (PositiveCertification) requiring second pre-image resistance
     because: SHA1 is not considered secure since 2026-02-01T00:00:00Z