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The page about upgrading [0] does have this warning: Back up your data Performing a release upgrade is never without risk. The upgrade may fail, leaving

The page about upgrading [0] does have this warning: Back up your data Performing a release upgrade is never without risk. The upgrade may fail, leaving the system in a non-functioning state. USERS SHOULD BACKUP ALL DATA before attempting a release upgrade. DebianStability contains more information on these steps. [0] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUpgrade https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUpgrade

sugarpimpdorsey 1y ago
Yet Windows will let you roll back an upgrade with a single click within 10 days. Of course anyone can restore from backups. It's a pain and it's time consuming. My post serves more as a warning to those who may develop buyer's remorse.
- BoredPositron 1y ago
  You know imaging your machine is still an option...
  - mikae1 1y ago
    But you can't do that on a live system as you can with Windows or macOS. Not a problem for pre release upgrade perhaps. But I'm so missing this feature from macOS.
    - pak9rabid 1y ago
      You can if you're using LVM. Take a snapshot of the logical volume your system is on, then run `dd' against the snapshot, as it's essentially a frozen point-in-time. I've used this trick many times in a live, rw environment.
    - SAI_Peregrinus 1y ago
      You can snapshot the filesystem if you're using BTRFS, ZFS, or another Copy-on-Write filesystem.
    - hysan 1y ago
      Depends on your filesystem. For example, I certainly can as I’m using btrfs. I’m also using Timeshift for easy management of snapshots. As others have mentioned, there are other choices too like Snapper that all work well.
- jraph 1y ago
  You might like snapshot based solutions like Snapper
  - aitchnyu 1y ago
    I once tried Spiral Linux, light fork of Sid with bundled Snapper stack. Switched to a giant-userbase distro, Fedora, mostly because Plasma was bad with 5k screens. Are there mainstream distros with easy rollback?
    - jraph 1y ago
      openSUSE should be one of them.
- wiz21c 1y ago
  as much as I love Debian (been a faithful user since 25 years or so, no more Windows at home since then), that Windows ability is just really cool and Debian is still not on par I believe...
- sellmesoap 1y ago
  I always find the rough edges on upgrading windows (and macos), I've had several computers that take 3-4 hours to hit a roadblock, give a inscrutable error message and rollback. I feel spoiled using nixos (once you get over the learning curve)
- crtasm 1y ago
  Linux Mint offers rollbacks, I have snapshots going back a point release and a major version.
- necheffa 1y ago
  This is what LVM/btrfs/ZFS snapshots were invented for. Windows is using Volume Shadow Copies, which for the purposes of this discussion, you can think of as roughly equivalent.
- a5c11 1y ago
  If you keep your /home on a separate partition, you can basically reinstall a whole system without much efforts. It's good to do that from time to time. etckeeper is very helpful too. Lots of desktop apps are AppImage nowadays, so if you keep them in the home directory, they'll persist.

sugarpimpdorsey 1y ago

Yet Windows will let you roll back an upgrade with a single click within 10 days. Of course anyone can restore from backups. It's a pain and it's time consuming. My post serves more as a warning to those who may develop buyer's remorse.

BoredPositron 1y ago
You know imaging your machine is still an option...
- mikae1 1y ago
  But you can't do that on a live system as you can with Windows or macOS. Not a problem for pre release upgrade perhaps. But I'm so missing this feature from macOS.
  - pak9rabid 1y ago
    You can if you're using LVM. Take a snapshot of the logical volume your system is on, then run `dd' against the snapshot, as it's essentially a frozen point-in-time. I've used this trick many times in a live, rw environment.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 1y ago
    You can snapshot the filesystem if you're using BTRFS, ZFS, or another Copy-on-Write filesystem.
  - hysan 1y ago
    Depends on your filesystem. For example, I certainly can as I’m using btrfs. I’m also using Timeshift for easy management of snapshots. As others have mentioned, there are other choices too like Snapper that all work well.
jraph 1y ago
You might like snapshot based solutions like Snapper
- aitchnyu 1y ago
  I once tried Spiral Linux, light fork of Sid with bundled Snapper stack. Switched to a giant-userbase distro, Fedora, mostly because Plasma was bad with 5k screens. Are there mainstream distros with easy rollback?
  - jraph 1y ago
    openSUSE should be one of them.
wiz21c 1y ago
as much as I love Debian (been a faithful user since 25 years or so, no more Windows at home since then), that Windows ability is just really cool and Debian is still not on par I believe...
sellmesoap 1y ago
I always find the rough edges on upgrading windows (and macos), I've had several computers that take 3-4 hours to hit a roadblock, give a inscrutable error message and rollback. I feel spoiled using nixos (once you get over the learning curve)
crtasm 1y ago
Linux Mint offers rollbacks, I have snapshots going back a point release and a major version.
necheffa 1y ago
This is what LVM/btrfs/ZFS snapshots were invented for. Windows is using Volume Shadow Copies, which for the purposes of this discussion, you can think of as roughly equivalent.
a5c11 1y ago
If you keep your /home on a separate partition, you can basically reinstall a whole system without much efforts. It's good to do that from time to time. etckeeper is very helpful too. Lots of desktop apps are AppImage nowadays, so if you keep them in the home directory, they'll persist.