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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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All the troubles with Debian upgrade (feddit.org)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by arty@feddit.org to c/linux@lemmy.ml

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So a new major version of Debian has been released, and now I see a lot of complaints about various issues stemming from an upgrade. I do not remember this many after an LTS Ubuntu version. I don't want to rush to conclusions like "Ubuntu has money for better quality assurance". I can easily come up with explanations for why these statistics can be skewed, like "Ubuntu-loving plebeians do not come to complain to elite Lemmy users about their puny problems". I'm curious what you think?

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[–] porl@lemmy.world 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That's the point - those mismatched packages often break the system. I had to do probably near a half dozen reinstalls after Ubuntu's "clever" trick wrecked my system. I ran a Debian system from potato through to sarge updating each time with no trouble. My Ubuntu machine had problems virtually every upgrade (though most minor) and required more than a few full reinstalls.

[–] arty@feddit.org 1 points 2 days ago

Your words made me look again into the documentation:

If your APT configuration mentions additional sources besides bookworm, or if you have installed packages from other releases or from third parties, then to ensure a reliable upgrade process you may wish to begin by removing these complicating factors.

I hadn’t realized that "removing these complicating factors" meant removing these packages, not just disabling their repositories. The wording is terribly vague.

Now I don’t say anything against your experience and the conclusions it has led you to.

But my experience was that only repositories were automatically disabled and packages stayed in their place. The upgrades went through smoothly, things did not break. Were I forced to uninstall these packages and look for their replacements afterwards, I’d be quite annoyed. Maybe not as much as you, when you were forced to reinstall the system.

I’ll conclude for myself that both paths can lead to happy outcomes as well as to poor outcomes. Thank you for sharing!