Upgrade Bullseye to Bookworm, and getting of rid of systemd?

[Matthew Vernon]

Hi,

On 21/06/2023 12:04, Ottavio Caruso wrote:
> Is it at least theoretically possible to upgrade (as opposite to
> install from scratch and/or converting Debian to Devuan) stock Debian
> Bullseye to Bookworm and getting rid of systemd?

Yes; both bullseye and bookworm should work with sysvinit.

> If so, should it be done before of after upgrading? Can one kill two
> birds with one stone?

I think I'd be tempted to do so before the upgrade, but it shouldn't matter.

> I have found only two references [1] [2] and I don't know how I can
> (and if it's worth) putting all the pieces together.
> 
> [1] https://wiki.debian.org/Init#Changing_the_init_system_-_on_a_running_system

This is how I think it's best to approach the change. If that doesn't 
work, please let me know and/or update the wiki :)

As noted there, if you want a desktop-type setup, you probably want 
libpam-elogind. Other than that, things should mostly Just Work.

Pace other contributors to this thread, if you're moving to bookworm, 
don't block /usr-merge - un-merged systems are unsupported in bookworm 
(and yes, it's not ideal that there is still work to improve dpkg 
support for usr-merge).

HTH,

Matthew