How to Upgrade from Debian 12 (bookworm) to Debian 13 (trixie)
The Debian project is released a new stable version 13 (code name "trixie") on August 9th, 2025.
"trixie" will be supported for the next 5 years thanks to the combined work of the Debian Security team and the Debian Long Term Support team.
Debian 13 "trixie" ships with several desktop environments, such as:
- GNOME 48,
- KDE Plasma 6.3,
- LXDE 13,
- LXQt 2.1.0,
- Xfce 4.20
Login to the server as root user. If you are not root yet, run the following command:
su -Verify your operating system version using the following command:
lsb_release -a
You should see the following output:
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)
Release: 12
Codename: bookwormIf that's not the case, you are most likely not running Debian 11 and should not follow this guide further. Otherwise, you can continue with the next step:
Now you must update and upgrade all your system packages to the latest version. Run the following command to update and upgrade all packages:
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgradeAfter that, you shall restart your system to apply all updates:
rebootUpdate repository files
We will now update the repository sources to use the Debian 13 trixie repository.
To do so, you can update all source files by running these commands:
sed -i 's/bookworm/trixie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
sed -i 's/bookworm/trixie/g' /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*.listUpgrade from Debian 12 (bookworm) to Debian 13 (trixie)
At this point, your server is ready for the upgrade.
First, update the repository to apply the changes you made in the previous step.
apt-get update -yDuring the process of updating, the system might query you for input, for example when it wants to restarts services, update configuration file, or read the release notes. Go through these queries one by one. For configuration files, it's usually best to compare the differences between the current version and proposed new version of your configuration file.
Update the existing packages without installing new ones:
apt-get upgrade --without-new-pkgs -yOnce this is done, run the following command to start the upgrade:
apt-get full-upgrade -yOnce your system has been upgraded, restart it to apply all the updates.
rebootVerify the upgrade from bookworm to trixie
Verify your operating system version using the following command:
lsb_release -a
You should see the following output:
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Debian
Description: Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie)
Release: 13
Codename: trixie
Congratulations your server is now upgraded from Debian Bookworm 12 to Debian Trixie 13.
