---
title: Upgrade from Debian 11 Bullseye to Debian 12 Bookworm
lang: en
published: 2026-02-08T01:39:17.588Z
description: This guide explains how to upgrade from Debian 11 to Debian 12. Expect the upgrade to take about 20–30 minutes, mostly waiting for packages to download.
image: ""
tags:
  - Debian
  - Bookworm
  - Linux
category: Operating Systems
draft: false
---

# Upgrade from Debian 11 Bullseye to Debian 12 Bookworm

Expect the upgrade to take about 20–30 minutes, mostly waiting for packages to download.

## Update APT sources

```
sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list
```

Change every line that has:
```
bullseye main contrib non-free
```
to:
```
bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
```

Do this for all deb and deb-src lines. For example: `deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware`


## Upgrade Debian

```
sudo apt update

sudo apt upgrade --without-new-pkgs

sudo apt full-ugrade

sudo apt autoremove
```

## Reboot and Verify

Reboot:
```
sudo reboot
```

Verify:
```
cat /etc/os-release
```

You should see `PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 12 (bookworm)"`.