Downgrade from Debian SID to Stable from Jessie to Wheezy

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Downgrade from Debian SID to Stable from Jessie to Wheezy

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Downgrade from Debian SID to Stable from Jessie to Wheezy. This Tutorial describes the downgrade process you need to run to ge back stable rel after sid upgrade. Recently, a problem occurred on my server after i had upgraded my system with the SID repository in my sources.list. The Debian release jessie came out and after upgrading to this release some services no longer ran properly anymore. So I had to run a task to get back to Wheezy to recover the failing services.

So here are the few easy steps you will need to downgrade a Debian SID release to Wheezy:

Important Article Update Note: First of all, i give no guarantee that this article will still work with current state, since i wrote it in time were Jessie was Sid and worked flawless at that state. Carefully watch out for “Will break your System” Warnings and better stop the remove of packages if this Warning occurs, because that will break your System finally and probably did something wrong. Since new SID/Jessie release gets delivered with systemd as default, it is important to switch back from systemd to sysv first before the downgrade process by doing:

apt-get install sysvinit sysvinit-core sysvinit-utils
cp /usr/share/sysvinit/inittab /etc/inittab

Then reboot your server and remove all the systemd stuff!

apt-get remove --purge --auto-remove systemd

Set Apt-Pinning to prevent systemd upgrade mechanism:

echo -e 'Package: systemdnPin: release o=DebiannPin: release *nPin-Priority: -1' > /etc/apt/preferences.d/no-systemd

And continue with the previous downgrade tutorial steps:

First of all you have to remove or replace all SID tags from your /etc/apt/sources.list to your preffered target release

Mine sources.list file looks like this after changes have made:

deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main

deb http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free
deb-src http://cdn.debian.net/debian/ wheezy main contrib non-free

Now we have to use the Apt-Pinning feature to get the correct default release tag for our apt downgrade

Modify or create the file /etc/apt/preferences and put following text in it:

Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 1001

Important Update note: Replace a=stable with n=wheezy if you are running not the SID but Jessie final release!

At the next step we have to run the apt update and upgrade process for downgrading all packages

So you will need to enter these two commands to finish the downgrade process:

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade

Apt will ask you for downgrading all packages now.
Just say yes, let it go and pray that all packages getting installed and downgraded properly!

If some packages failing on downgrade you have to purge them by doing:

apt-get purge yourfailingpackage

And reinstall them with apt-get install yourfailingpackage after purging it.

Jules

Jules is the owner and author of ISPIRE.ME. He's a Linux System Engineer, Tech fanatic and an Open Source fan.

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View Comments

Jacob says:

October 20, 2013 at 03:55

Thanks a lot.
- Jules says:
  
  October 20, 2013 at 13:23
  
  No problem ;-)
- Remco says:
  
  December 5, 2014 at 21:26
  
  If this stuff works, it is worth 5 euro ! (THANKS & Cheers)
Ola says:

November 1, 2013 at 22:25

If i installed jessie initially (not upgrade), can I still downgrade to wheezy?
- Jules says:
  
  November 2, 2013 at 09:04
  
  Hi Ola,
  
  sure you can. It doesn't really depend on the version you've installed initially.
kurtos says:

January 30, 2014 at 16:12

Well explained.
Thanks.
Stefan says:

February 16, 2014 at 21:20

Thanks! I actually had to do an additional 'apt-get dist-upgrade' to downgrade packages with assumingly a different version number in the two editions.
ahes says:

March 5, 2014 at 08:40

For me 'apt-get dist-upgrade' worked.
BootLoop says:

March 17, 2014 at 11:14

Thanks. You just saved my bacon. +1 times a billion.
Justin Pretorius says:

May 27, 2014 at 18:51

Thanks so much, an excellent article for something that should be easily found in the Debian manuals
- Jules says:
  
  May 28, 2014 at 07:53
  
  Well it's not the best but working solution. Debian would never recommend it since it also can break your whole system.
  But if you have just this only chance it will do and mostly well ;-)
haek says:

June 3, 2014 at 10:12

There is no /etc/apt/preferences only /etc/apt/preferences.d exists
- Jules says:
  
  June 3, 2014 at 10:35
  
  Hi,
  
  if it doesn't exist, create it.
  Thats why i wrote in my article: Modify or create the file /etc/apt/preferences
  
  ;-)
axkibe says:

September 5, 2014 at 14:36

In my case it didn't work.

Issue with systemd vs. sysvinit.

I learned that I was supposed to switch from systemd back to sysvinit-core and do a reboot to use that one before downgrading package versions. This way the installer keept stoping because it couldn't remove systemd. I tried to go back up jessie, install sysvinit-core and do a reboot, unfortunally the system was left in so an unusuable state, it didn't boot.

I ended up putting a wheezy installer USB on it, removing everything but the home folder from install root and do a clean reinstall to wheezy.
- Jules says:
  
  September 5, 2014 at 15:38
  
  Where it stopped to boot finally? What error messages you get?
  For me it sounds more like an shell issue. Probably default shell were set to dash and thus will break up init scripts at all.
  dpkg-reconfigure dash - whats selected there (yes/no)?
  - Axel Kittenberger says:
    
    September 8, 2014 at 11:33
    
    It won't let one deinstall systemd while the system is running systemd, I searched about that and the common opinion was one should revert the system to use sysvinit-core then reboot, than remove or purge systemd. However I couldn't reboot since the system was currently broken, but I also couldn't fix to the previous state, since package management keept refusing to let go of the systemd package, with all kind of dependencies. I can't answer questions anymore, since I reinstalled wheezy the proper way already, using an usb stick and moving the testing system with an installer shell out of place.
    
    So my idea is, before you downgrade install sysvinit-core and revert to it before downgrading. Maybe your jessie was not yet converted to systemd before the downgrade? Or likely I just did something wrong missing a proper force, just -f didnt cut it.
    
    In this case it wasn't a big issue since I had physical access to the machine anyway, I was at first just lazy to do it the debian adviced way.
    - Scott says:
      
      February 13, 2015 at 17:52
      
      Same thing happened to me just barely. I SSH'd into my machine to do this from work, and it totally hosed my machine because systemd couldn't be switched out. Probably want to make sure you add info about switching to sysvinit-core before downgrading current jessie.
Khurram says:

September 9, 2014 at 20:04

I get this problem after removing the systemd package. System isnt booting, so I am doing this all in chroot. Kindly advise.

# apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
app-install-data docutils-common docutils-doc gdebi-core gnustep-base-common
gnustep-base-runtime gnustep-common gnustep-gui-common hplip-data
i965-va-driver ieee-data ipxe-qemu libaio1 libaqbanking-data libaqbanking34
libaqofxconnect7 libarchive12 libart-2.0-2 libasan1 libasn1-8-heimdal
libatomic1 libavresample2 libavutil54 libbfio1 libboost-thread1.55.0
libbrlapi0.5 libcap2-bin libchromaprint0 libcogl-common libdrm-nouveau2
libdvbpsi9 libebml4 libelf1 libepoxy0 libewf2 libfdt1 libfreerdp1
libgles2-mesa libglib2.0-bin libgnustep-base1.22 libgssapi3-heimdal
libgutenprint2 libgwenhywfar-data libgwenhywfar60 libhcrypto4-heimdal
libheimbase1-heimdal libheimntlm0-heimdal libhx509-5-heimdal libiscsi1
libiscsi2 libjson-c2 libkrb5-26-heimdal libktoblzcheck1c2a libldb1
liblua5.2-0 libmatroska6 libntdb1 libobjc4 libopenvg1-mesa
libpackagekit-glib2-14 libpam-cap libproxy-tools libproxy1 libqpdf13
libroken18-heimdal libseccomp2 libsnmp-base libspice-server1 libswscale3
libsystemd-daemon0 libsystemd-id128-0 libsystemd-journal0 libtevent0
libtsk10 libtxc-dxtn-s2tc0 libubsan0 libusageenvironment1 libusbredirparser0
libusbredirparser1 libvdeplug2 libwebrtc-audio-processing-0 libwind0-heimdal
libxen-4.1 libxmlsec1 libxmlsec1-gcrypt libxmlsec1-gnutls
linux-headers-3.14-1-common linux-headers-3.14-2-common linux-kbuild-3.14
openbios-ppc openbios-sparc openhackware packagekit packagekit-backend-aptcc
packagekit-tools pulseaudio-utils python-crypto python-debian
python-docutils python-ldb python-ntdb python-packagekit python-pexpect
python-ply python-pycparser python-pygments python-renderpm python-reportlab
python-reportlab-accel python-roman python-six python-talloc python-tdb
python-wstools python3-apt python3-chardet python3-dbus python3-six
qemu-keymaps qemu-slof qpdf rtkit seabios sharutils tk va-driver-all
vdpau-va-driver vgabios
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
gcc hplip-data libaqbanking34 libpython2.7 libsmbclient libxmlsec1-gcrypt
libxmlsec1-gnutls python python2.7 python2.7-minimal
Suggested packages:
gcc-multilib autoconf automake1.9 libtool flex bison gdb gcc-doc hplip
aqbanking-tools python-doc python-tk python2.7-doc
Recommended packages:
libaqbanking-plugins-libgwenhywfar60
The following packages will be REMOVED:
gcc-4.9 libaqbanking34-plugins libaqebics0 libaqhbci22 libpython-stdlib
libpython2.7-stdlib python-cffi python-cryptography python-debianbts
python-defusedxml python-reportbug python-soappy
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
gcc hplip-data libaqbanking34 libpython2.7 libsmbclient libxmlsec1-gcrypt
libxmlsec1-gnutls python python2.7 python2.7-minimal
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 10 downgraded, 12 to remove and 150 not upgraded.
10 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/14.5 MB of archives.
After this operation, 16.9 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Could not find platform independent libraries
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to [:]
ImportError: No module named site
Can not write log, openpty() failed (/dev/pts not mounted?)
(Reading database ... 131465 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing python-cryptography ...
Could not find platform independent libraries
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to [:]
ImportError: No module named site
dpkg: error processing python-cryptography (--remove):
subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
Could not find platform independent libraries
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to [:]
ImportError: No module named site
dpkg: error while cleaning up:
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Removing python-cffi ...
Could not find platform independent libraries
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to [:]
ImportError: No module named site
dpkg: error processing python-cffi (--remove):
subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
Removing python-reportbug ...
Could not find platform independent libraries
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to [:]
ImportError: No module named site
dpkg: error processing python-reportbug (--remove):
subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
Removing python-debianbts ...
Could not find platform independent libraries
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to [:]
ImportError: No module named site
dpkg: error processing python-debianbts (--remove):
subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
Removing python-soappy ...
Could not find platform independent libraries
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to [:]
ImportError: No module named site
dpkg: error processing python-soappy (--remove):
subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
Removing python-defusedxml ...
Could not find platform independent libraries
Consider setting $PYTHONHOME to [:]
ImportError: No module named site
dpkg: error processing python-defusedxml (--remove):
subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
python-cryptography
python-cffi
python-reportbug
python-debianbts
python-soappy
python-defusedxml
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I am unable to delete these packages too.
- Todd says:
  
  April 1, 2015 at 17:41
  
  Got this aswell, fixed it by doing:
  apt-get autoclean
  apt-get clean
  apt-get purge python2.7-minimal
  (errors will ensue)
  apt-get update
  apt-get download python2.7 python2.7-minimal libpython
  dpkg -i python*.deb
  apt-get update
  apt-get upgrade
  
  and everything will work out fine.