Robert Heller <[email protected]> wrote:
> At Sat, 14 Feb 2026 02:37:50 +0000 [email protected] wrote:
>
> >
> > My Pi is 0 2W[1] and I want to convert "RaspberryPi OS" 64-bit to
> > Debian.
> >
> > I alrrady tried:
> >
> > Live Migrating from Raspberry Pi OS bullseye to Debian bookworm
> > https://www.complete.org/live-migrating-from-raspberry-pi-os-bullseye-to-debian-bookworm/
> >
> > but my Pi got stucked in boot so I had to restore the backup to SD card
> > using dd command.
> > I already asked about it on RPIi Forum but no useful answer:
> >
> > https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?p=2361184&hilit=complete.org&sid=d38151fb0d5709c32075d448218f8497#p2361184
> >
>
> >
> > This RPI OS:
> > - already using debian's APT as source (it's RPIOS' default)
> > - is version Debian 13
> > so I believe it should be easy to migrate into pure Debian 13 without
> > formatting.
>
> You really don't want to do that. All of the Pi-like SBCs, including the
> Raspberry Pis themselves need "special" board-specific kernel builds and many
> (esp. the Raspberry Pis) have non-"standard" boot processes (The RPi's need a
> VFAT partition to boot from). This means the kernels and the boot
> infrastructure and firmware needs to be pulled from the board-specific
> Raspberry Pi repos. This means it still needs to be a RPi OS (Rasbian) system
> and not a "pure" Debian 13. A "pure" Debian 13 aarch64 install is not going to
> boot and run on a Raspberry Pi. The necessary boot infrastructure will be
> missing.
>
> RPi OS (Rasbian) IS Debian and just about all user-mode packages are pulled
> from the Debian repository. Only the kernel (Raspberry Pi specific) and some
> other Raspberry Pi specific applications and [system] utilities (eg
> rasp-config and the like and the RPi boot infrastructure, including firmware,
> like the kernel overlays) are pulled from Raspberry Pi repos. These little
> SBCs need certain drivers compiled into the kernel (not as modules) and need
> their own bits of early start up code (because of the boot logic in the cold
> start boot ROM logic).
>
> Yes, it is possible to upgrade major versions by diddling with the
> /etc/apt/sources.list file and doing apt update / apt full-upgrade. But it
> will still be RPi OS (Rasbian), just a new major release.
>
It may not be easy to **migrate** from Raspbian to Debian but it's
certainly possible to run 'real' Debian on a Pi. I have two doing
exactly that (as well as one running Raspbian). I don't quite know
how I did it though! :-)
So, one of the Debian ones shows:-
Debian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) - Kernel: 6.12.47+rpt-rpi-v8 aarch64
and /etc/sources.list is:-
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie main contrib non-free
non-free-firmware
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian-security/ trixie-security main contrib
non-free non-free-firmware
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian trixie-updates main contrib non-free
non-free-firmware
Whereas the Rasbian one shows:-
Raspbian GNU/Linux 13 (trixie) - Kernel: 6.12.62+rpt-rpi-v7 armv7l
and two files in /etc/apt/sources.list.d have:-
chris@upspi$ more raspbian.sources
Types: deb
URIs: http://raspbian.raspberrypi.com/raspbian/
Architectures: armhf
Suites: trixie
Components: main contrib non-free rpi
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/raspbian-archive-keyring.gpg
chris@upspi$ more raspi.sources
Types: deb
URIs: http://archive.raspberrypi.com/debian/
Suites: trixie
Components: main
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/raspberrypi-archive-keyring.pgp
I wouldn't like to try migrating from one to the other! :-)
--
Chris Green
ยท
