Prevent do-release-upgrade from disabling 3rd party repos

[Tommy Trussell]

On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 6:58 AM Sam Varshavchik <mrsam at courier-mta.com>
wrote:

> Chris Green writes:
>
> > On Fri, Aug 30, 2024 at 07:35:23AM -0400, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> > > I have a local APT repository with custom packages that I install, it's
> > > added to /etc/apt/sources
> > >
> > > I want to use do-release-upgrade to update jammy to noble.
> > >
> > > I rebuilt my custom packages for noble, using pbuilder-dist, and
> installed
> > > them in the apt repo, everything should be ready to go.
> > >
> > > However, no matter what I try, do-release-upgrade wants to disable
> third
> > > party repos:

...



> > >
> > Just do the upgrade, then re-enable the 3rd part sources and do 'apt
> > update', 'apt upgrade'.
>
> This is not going to work, because I need the local repository pulled
> into
> the upgrade in order to update the custom packages from jammy to noble,
> as
> part of the upgrade. Otherwise I believe the upgrade will either fail due
> to
> unresolved dependencies, or my custom packages will get uninstalled. Or,
> even worse, they'll get replaced by Ubuntu-packaged debs, which will
> create
> a mess. I need to include my local repo in the upgrade, in order to
> properly
> update everything.
>

Can you set up a clone of the system and TRY it?

Consider what needs to happen from the Ubuntu perspective --

When you upgrade package A there may be no changes needed to data files
etc. Maybe this is true for 90% of packages.

Standard Ubuntu Package B, however, requires that a change in the format of
the /etc files, maybe do something to data in another place, so on and so
forth, so there's an upgrade script that needs to run. Ubuntu staff and
volunteers have very carefully tested this WITH STOCK UBUNTU SYSTEMS.

You're saying your special applications require special handling, and
Ubuntu has no idea how to handle them. That makes perfect sense!

I suggest another strategy would be to plot out what needs to happen when
you take a regular unmodified Ubuntu system and you install your
applications from scratch, and imagine that's PROBABLY pretty close to what
needs to happen after a do-release-upgrade.

Even if it isn't, it's probably EASIEST to back up everything, install
Ubuntu from scratch, then install your modified software and restore your
data.


> I can see that at the point where it issues this warning,
> do-release-upgrade
> already fudged /etc/apt/sources.list, and commented out my entry in
> /etc/apt/sources.list.d, and I am very tempted to manually reenable it.
> However, I'd like to know the right way to do this.
>

I suggest this might very well work, though as they say, if it breaks at
least you still have all the pieces!

BACKUP backup BACKUP backup. Keep a backup at each stage. Don't throw away
any of the backups until you have fully tested everything.
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