How to Upgrade from Debian 11 to Debian 12

The latest version of Debian 12 codename Bookworm is available. If you are still running Debian 11 Bullseye, you can easily upgrade to the latest release with a few simple steps. This tutorial will guide you how to upgrade from Debian Bullseye to Bookworm. We will use the command line approach on this tutorial. Don’t worry, if you follow this guide, you should be fine no matter if you are new to Terminal commands.

Steps to Upgrade from Debian Bullseye to Bookworm

Even this process is considered as safe, it is highly recommended to backup your system prior to the upgrade process.

Step 1. Update Debian

As usual, let’s make sure our system is up to date. Open Terminal and then execute this command to update Debian system.

su
apt update
apt upgrade

Step 2. Add the Debian Bookworm repository

We need to update the repositories. On Terminal, use this command to open the sources.list file

su
nano /etc/apt/sources.list

And then, we need to replace all the bullseye instance into bookworm. Below is the original sources.list file in my system

After changing bullseye to bookworm, it will look like this

Now close the editor using combination of CTRL and X on the keyboard. Answer yes by typing Y and press Enter. Now update Debian system with the new repositories.

apt update

Step 3. Upgrade Debian

Now let’s do the minimal upgrade with this command

apt upgrade --without-new-pkgs

This process will take a while to complete. Be patient.

Now let’s do the full upgrade

apt full-upgrade

Wait until the upgrade process is completed. Next, reboot your system and enjoy Debian 12 Bookworm.