Issues with Devuan4 to Devuan5 upgrade

Other Distributions
1

Yesterday I did an inline upgrade of my Devuan 4 (Chimaera) to Devuan 5 (Daedalus).
I did the following, and it all went smoothly

  1. Make sure Devuan 4 is updated
apt update
apt upgrade
  1. Change /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged deadalus main  contrib non-free
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged daedalus-updates main  contrib non-free
deb http://deb.devuan.org/merged daedalus-security main  contrib non-free
  1. Update with daedalus
apt update
apt upgrade

4.Do the distro upgrade

apt dist-upgrade
  1. Cleanup
apt autoremove --purge
apt autoclean

It all seemed to work, apart from some annoying messages about filezilla-server

  1. Reboot into MX and do
update-grub
  1. Reboot again
    Devuan boots OK

but
On the grub menu, it is still called Chimaera
and the file /etc/os-release has

nevj@trinity:~$ cat /etc/os-release
PRETTY_NAME="Devuan GNU/Linux 4 (chimaera)"
NAME="Devuan GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="4"
VERSION="4 (chimaera)"
VERSION_CODENAME="chimaera"
ID=devuan
ID_LIKE=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.devuan.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://devuan.org/os/community"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.devuan.org/"

and the file /etc/issue has

nevj@trinity:~$ cat /etc/issue
Devuan GNU/Linux 4 \n \l

but
/proc/version has

nevj@trinity:~$ cat /proc/version
Linux version 6.1.0-12-amd64 (debian-kernel@lists.debian.org) (gcc-12 (Debian 12.2.0-14) 12.2.0, GNU ld (GNU Binutils for Debian) 2.40) #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.52-1 (2023-09-07)

So it knows it is Debian 12 ( which is Devuan 5) , but the files in /etc do not reflect its true identity

I googled how to fix it, and found the following

# apt-get install base-files
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
base-files is already the newest version (11.1+devuan4).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 35 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
.....

So the package system thinks it is Debian 11 (Devuan 4) and says that the base files are up to date.

Does anyone know how to fix this? … I am tempted to wipe the lot and do a new install of Devuan 5.

I dont think I should edit the files in /etc… there are warnings that doing such a thing could break the system. Especially not /etc/issue

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2

Back up/flush/new install is a practice that has proven itself to me over and over again. My data is safe–first priority–and I don’t burn my fingers messing about under the hood. I’ll be 76 Thursday and I’m comfortable reverting to K.I.S.S. principles. I know who the last S is referring to.

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3

I got my fingers burnt.
After some very frustrating fiddling with /etc/apt/sources.list
which led to nothing, I resorted to ChatGPT.
It gave the following hint

The error message indicates that there is an issue with the repository configuration in your /etc/apt/sources.list file. Specifically, it says that it can't find a Release file for the "daedalus" repository, and it returns a "404 Not Found" error for that repository.

The issue here is a typographical error. The repository name should be "daedalus," not "deadalus." You have a typo in your sources list, and that's why apt-get update can't find the Release file for "daedalus."

To fix this, open your /etc/apt/sources.list file and correct the typo by changing "deadalus" to "daedalus."

Well, how embarassing. It was all due to a typo
I repeated the sequence above , after fixing typo, and the upgrade all went smoothly

@Rosika please note… check your sources.list file for typos.

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4

That I will do. :wink:

Thanks a lot, Neville.

Cheers from Rosika :slightly_smiling_face:

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5

Found it. ChatGP helped you? Explain, when it’s convenient.

6

Hi Bill,
I asked GPT what the error message meant… and it found the spelling mistake.
That is unusual… normally you would get an explanation and some hints, but not a complete diagnosis
Regards
Neville

7

I’ve been trying OpenAI and found some fairly complete answers, including one suggesting games I can play with my cat. May end up being useful.

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