I updated my main machine to Bookworm (12.2, kernel 6.1.0.13-amd64)
some time ago and it's running well. My laptop, and the media box in
the living room, are still running Bullseye. I was about to update
them when I read the fuss about EXT4 file system corruption. At first
I got the impression that this happened in 12.4, but further digging
suggests that the bug was in 12.3, fixed in 12.4. Is this the case,
or should I wait for 12.5 before updating my other machines?

Just looking for re-assurance before I take the plunge.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | "Some of you may die,
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | but it's a sacrifice
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | I'm willing to make."
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lord Farquaad (Shrek)

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On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 11:52:04AM -0800, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

I updated my main machine to Bookworm (12.2, kernel 6.1.0.13-amd64)
some time ago and it's running well.

I read the fuss about EXT4 file system corruption. At first
I got the impression that this happened in 12.4, but further digging
suggests that the bug was in 12.3, fixed in 12.4. Is this the case,
or should I wait for 12.5 before updating my other machines?

Yes, it's fixed. The current stable kernel ABI is 6.1.0-17, which is
from a security update post 12.4. <https://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2024/msg00000.html>

The data corruption bug was initially fixed by a kernel which had a
major bug in a Wifi support module. The kernel after *that* was the
first safe one. And now we have -17 which is that plus some more
security fixes. Upgrading is recommended.

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On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 11:52:04AM -0800, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

I updated my main machine to Bookworm (12.2, kernel 6.1.0.13-amd64)
some time ago and it's running well. My laptop, and the media box in
the living room, are still running Bullseye. I was about to update
them when I read the fuss about EXT4 file system corruption. At first
I got the impression that this happened in 12.4, but further digging
suggests that the bug was in 12.3, fixed in 12.4. Is this the case,
or should I wait for 12.5 before updating my other machines?

Just looking for re-assurance before I take the plunge.

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | "Some of you may die,
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | but it's a sacrifice
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | I'm willing to make."
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lord Farquaad (Shrek)

Depends if you want to wait for three weeks. If you install with 12.4 then the install process should install 6.1.0-17 by the time you complete the install and reboot, assumiing that you are connected to the 'net.

It's not a problem. 12.3 was stopped because of file corruption, 12.4 was fixed.For some machines, that caused Wifi issues but only a few. The current Debian
kernel should *just work*

All the very best,

Andy

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On Wed, 24 Jan 2024 21:20:01 +0100 Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org>
wrote:

On Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 11:52:04AM -0800, Charlie Gibbs wrote:

I updated my main machine to Bookworm (12.2, kernel 6.1.0.13-amd64)
some time ago and it's running well.

I read the fuss about EXT4 file system corruption. At first
I got the impression that this happened in 12.4, but further digging
suggests that the bug was in 12.3, fixed in 12.4. Is this the case,
or should I wait for 12.5 before updating my other machines?

Yes, it's fixed. The current stable kernel ABI is 6.1.0-17, which is
from a security update post 12.4. <https://lists.debian.org/debian-security-announce/2024/msg00000.html>

The data corruption bug was initially fixed by a kernel which had a
major bug in a Wifi support module. The kernel after *that* was the
first safe one. And now we have -17 which is that plus some more
security fixes. Upgrading is recommended.

Thanks, Greg - and everyone else who answered - for the reassurances.
Today I took a thorough backup of my laptop and dove in, using the
instructions at https://wiki.debian.org/DebianUpgrade as a guide.
The process went smoothly, as always, so I took a deep breath and
performed the scariest step of all: re-booting.

It took a while, but being the first boot on a new system I gave it some
slack (no pun intended). Then the screen painted and... what the HELL
happened to my desktop? It looked more like my wife's Macbook than
good old Xfce. The only way I could get a command prompt was to SSH
in from another machine (at least the networking came up OK). I can
run slrn remotely - which is how I read this list - and I can even run
my preferred web browser, Seamonkey, from that remote command line.

A bit more web searching came up with these commands:

$ echo $XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP

$

(Well, maybe since it's a remote login it doesn't work properly.)

$ ps -e | grep -E -i "xfce|kde|gnome"

Omigod, I'm infested with GNOMEs! What happened to Xfce?
This didn't happen when I upgraded my main machine, although
it went to 12.2, not the 12.4 that's on my laptop. And the
damned thing hibernates - making my SSH session hang - rather
than running xscreensaver. (OK, I found a setting to stop
the hibernation, but Jamie Zawinski's pride and joy is still
nowhere to be found.)

However, I can make the laptop's screen display a settings
window, which contains interesting things like:

OS Name Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
OS Type 64-bit
GNOME version 43.9 (Aha!)
Windowing System Wayland (WHAT!?)

I followed the update steps exactly, accepting all defaults.
Well, there was one thing: since I was already at a root
prompt after doing my backup, I just typed "apt-get <whatever>"
rather than prefixing the commands with "sudo". Could this
cause such a drastic change? And if so, it would be nice if
the documentation warned about it. Xfce to GNOME? Xorg to
Wayland? That's pretty extreme.

I'm not yet ready to wipe it and restore my backup, but there's
only so much time I'm willing to spend tinkering with this.
I regularly use my laptop for work on the road, and I'm
trying to minimize my downtime.

I don't understand it - when I upgraded my main machine,
everything went smooth as butter, and my desktop and all
applications were left exactly as is. But on my laptop,
the only thing that appears intact is the contents of /home.
Can anyone suggest what happened and how to fix it?

--
/~\ Charlie Gibbs | "Some of you may die,
\ / <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> | but it's a sacrifice
X I'm really at ac.dekanfrus | I'm willing to make."
/ \ if you read it the right way. | -- Lord Farquaad (Shrek)

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Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@surfnaked.ca> writes:

I followed the update steps exactly, accepting all defaults.

If that were true, and you followed the steps in *the release notes* you
could for example compare what packages you had before and after. But I
guess you mean you followed the extremely minimal steps in the wiki?

Well, there was one thing: since I was already at a root
prompt after doing my backup, I just typed "apt-get <whatever>"
rather than prefixing the commands with "sudo". Could this
cause such a drastic change?

I guess it's just one of those things nobody wants to cover in a minimal
wiki page. You can't say "if you're root, then don't need to type sudo"
because that leads to confusion about root. Based on some dev's
complaint that people don't understand "be root".

I don't understand it - when I upgraded my main machine,
everything went smooth as butter, and my desktop and all
applications were left exactly as is. But on my laptop,
the only thing that appears intact is the contents of /home.
Can anyone suggest what happened and how to fix it?

Did anything actually happen, other than you logged in to a Gnome
Wayland session instead of an XFCE X11 session? Or if you login
automatically, maybe the default changed? So log out, select a session
you prefer and log in again?

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