Upgrade Pi-Star Bookworm to Trixie!
                              In Place!

Yes, you read that right! You CAN upgrade a working (or new build) image of Pi-Star from its current Debian Bookworm implementation to a Debian Trixie implementation in place. But... there's always a butt ... there's no quarantee the upgrade will work in all cases, just because.

            -- For experienced Pi-Star/Linux users only! --

Because an in-place upgrade such as this is involved/complicated, this undertaking should not be taken lightly. You need to have a good working knowledge of Linux and the Linux CLI as well as some understanding of how Pi-Star works.

The intended audience here are those who want to get a leg up on the next Debian platform for Pi-Star and are willing to spend the time testing the resulting upgrade, looking for problems and possible solutions, and otherwise contribute feedback and suggestions to make this kind of upgrade a success for everyone.

(You can, of course, simply wait until an official release of Pi-Star/Trixie is announced, or you can join the crowd at the forefront of the coming changes.)

Presented herein is a BASH script that automates (organizes) the steps involved. It assumes you are working with the lastest Pi-Star version (4.3.4) or similar variants.

This upgrade was worked out on RPI 3/4/5B systems with USB and NVME drives with direct ethernet connections. Upgrading using a micro-SD should be possible but will be vary slow and has not been tested. Wireless over WiFi may be problematic as the process may disconnect as components are replaced/restarted so that has not been fully tested.

As always, make a backup - or use a clone - of your system before attempting this upgrade.

Here are the basic steps taken to upgrade from Bookworm to Trixie, adapted from the steps given here, but with additions to handle Pi-Star specifically:

https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=392376

https://linux.how2shout.com/how-to-upgrade-debian-12-bookworm-to-13-trixie/

*** NOTE ***

The best way to run this script is via a WIRED connection. If using a WIRELESS connection, and running this script via a browser window, you may lose the connection during the update/upgrade process and may have to restart the machine and run the script again, risking missing some crucial prompts. Best option here is to run the script with a locally attached monitor and keyboard when connecting wirelessly.

Outline:

(Modify boot for generic devices?)

Shutdown key Pi-Star processes so they don't interfer with the update process

Bring the current Bookworm system up-to-date: sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade

Modify the APT source files to point to Trixie

Start the transition to Trixie: sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade --without-new-pkgs

Complete the upgrade: sudo apt full-upgrade

Remove obsolete/unneeded programs: sudo apt autoremove

Complete installation of new PHP/FPM 8.4 (install missing components) Modify NGINX config for new PHP

Set up to use current Python (3.13)

Fix up various configs (deprecations)

Fix non-compliant Pi-Star Python programs? (deprecation warnings)

Restart key Pi-Star process previously stopped

Installation:

Start by downloading and placing the BASH script file in the /home/pi-star directory:

  rpi-rw
  wget 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/kn2tod/pistar-trixie-upgrade/main/Trixie-Upgrade.sh'

and then execute it:

  sudo bash Trixie-Upgrade.sh [x]

[x] may be any character; omit the argument if you want to see ALL of the messages issued by the APT process.

The installation will take about 25-30 minutes for a typical SSD/NVME; about 1.5 hours for a typical USB. Note that you will be required to respond to various prompts during that time.

At the end, your system should be up and running on Trixie; check out the dashboard and make sure everything looks ok; reboot to confirm a clean start and check again.

Post-Installation:

The Raspbian system will update as usual with fixes being propogated for Trixie; updates to Pi-Star (either from a manual update request or via the nightly processing) will break some things with python programs that will require manual intervention:

(tbc)