HOWTO: Upgrade Raspberry Pi OS from Bullseye to Bookworm

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/bullseye/bookworm/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
sudo sed -i -e 's/bullseye/bookworm/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/raspi.list

# Contents of /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-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 bookworm main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free
#deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main contrib non-free

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

# Do actual update
sudo apt update && sudo apt -y full-upgrade && sudo apt -y clean && sudo apt -y autoremove

# Reboot
sudo reboot

# Remove old config files after doing sanity checks
sudo apt purge ?config-files

### Switch to the new kernels ###
#
## WARNING: Since this has bitten several folks. The following can completely brick your system requiring a reinstall
##          DO NOT do this if you are unsure
#
# Prep
sudo dpkg --purge --force-depends raspberrypi-kernel raspberrypi-bootloader
sudo umount /boot
sudo fsck -y /boot
sudo mkdir /boot/firmware
sudo sed -i.bak -e "s#boot#boot/firmware#" /etc/fstab
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo mount /boot/firmware
sudo apt install raspi-firmware

# Actually install the kernels. Make sure you pick the right version for your Pi
# sudo apt install linux-image-rpi-v8 linux-headers-rpi-v8      # 64bit
# sudo apt install linux-image-rpi-v7l linux-headers-rpi-v7l    # 32bit
# sudo apt install linux-image-rpi-v6 linux-headers-rpi-v6      

# Append auto_initramfs=1 to the bottom of file where it says [all]
sudo sed -i.bak '$ a\auto_initramfs=1' /boot/firmware/config.txt 

# Reboot
sudo reboot

# Verify using "uname -a" (correct as of 10/2023)
# Old kernel
# Linux raspberrypi 6.1.21-v8+ #1642 SMP PREEMPT Mon Apr  3 17:24:16 BST 2023 aarch64 GNU/Linux
# New kernel
# Linux raspberrypi 6.1.0-rpi4-rpi-v8 #1 SMP PREEMPT Debian 1:6.1.54-1+rpt2 (2023-10-05) aarch64 GNU/Linux

# If you are not converted to using NetworkManager, you might lose networking upon reboot. 
# Check the ARP table to see what the new DHCP assigned IP address is. You may have to manually set the IP address again
# Thanks to solsticedhiver for identifying this
#
# Install NetworkManager if not already installed
sudo apt-get install --no-install-recommends network-manager
#
# Switch to NetworkManager from dhcpcd
sudo systemctl enable --now NetworkManager
sudo systemctl disable --now dhcpcd
#
# Set up static IP. Adjust as necessary 
sudo nmcli -p connection show 
sudo nmcli -p connection show "Wired connection 1"
sudo nmcli con mod "Wired connection 1" ipv4.method manual ipv4.addresses 192.168.1.5/24 ipv4.gateway 192.168.1.1

# Reboot
sudo reboot

#
# Bonus steps
#
# Install btop
sudo apt-get install btop
#
# Update /etc/ssh/sshd_config for up to date, secure by default config. Use ssh-audit to verify
KexAlgorithms sntrup761x25519-sha512@openssh.com,curve25519-sha256,curve25519-sha256@libssh.org
HostKeyAlgorithms ssh-ed25519-cert-v01@openssh.com,ssh-ed25519
# Ciphers chacha20-poly1305@openssh.com # Disabled due to CVE-2023-48795 for now
Ciphers aes128-gcm@openssh.com,aes256-gcm@openssh.com 
MACs hmac-sha2-512-etm@openssh.com,hmac-sha2-256-etm@openssh.com

This went perfectly smoothly for me on a Pi4, thanks!

sudo sed -i.bak '$ a\auto_initramfs=1' /boot/firmware/config.txt

broke it for me. Raspi didn't boot with auto_initramfs set to 1 anymore. Reverted it to 0 and boot with new kernel was successful.

# Switch to NetworkManager from dhcpcd
sudo systemctl enable --now NetworkManager
sudo systemctl disable --now dhcpcd

Noteable here is that NetworkManager ignores all interfaces defined in /etc/network/interfaces*. The interfaces must be removed from there to get visible in NetworkManager.

Edit: I'm on a Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

Raspberry PI 4 Model B, 64bit, installed in NVMe disk. Just upgraded to bookworm with kernel, without problems :)

I've (mostly) followed these steps and now have Bookworm running on my Raspberry Pi model B. Notes:

• Lines 18-25 (contents of sources.list) only apply to 64-bit installations, not 32-bit installations. Lines 14-16 take care of sources.list based on your current install's bitness so just trust those.
• I was using an SD card from a fresh bookworm install (backed out of that, too much work) with root on an external SSD that still had bullseye installed. This booted fine with the SD card mounted at /boot, but IPv6 didn't work (I run dual stack). After making a backup copy of /boot, I followed lines 41-59, though I purged raspberrypi-kernel and raspberrypi-bootloader after unmounting /boot instead of before. New kernel (6.6.47+rpt-rpi-v6) installed fine and IPv6 was enabled after reboot.
• The above issues with IPv6 caused the initial upgrade to fail because my nginx config files had IPv6 addresses. I had to comment those out of the nginx config files then manually install nginx-full which allowed the upgrade to complete successfully.
• I already had auto_initramfs=1 in my config.txt

Excellent instructions, successfully updated my RPi 4B, thank you!

For people who have issues with switching the kernel packages. If you have this kind of error:

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
linux-update-symlinks failed to create symbolic link

(I don't remember the exact error message)

1. make sure that you have mounted the firmware partition already as /boot/firmware instead of /boot and that the fstab is correct
2. create the file /etc/kernel-img.conf with the content:

do_symlinks = yes
no_symlinks = no
image_dest = /boot
link_in_boot = true

3. run sudo apt --fix-broken install