Upgrading Crostini Linux from Buster to Bullseye

Chrome OS 101 was supposed to prompt to upgrade Crostini, its Linux container subsystem, from Debian Buster to Bullseye. A 9to5Google article on Chrome OS 101 noted:

Linux on Chrome OS now uses Debian 11 (Bullseye) with upgrade prompts available in the Settings app for those on Debian 10 (Buster). You also now get an upgrade log that’s saved in the Downloads folder.

However, when Chrome OS Stable 101.0.4951.59 landed on my ASUS Chromebox 3 with Crostini running Buster, I got no such prompt. A comment by the user Mr. Smith on an About Chromebooks post about upgrading to Bullseye clarified the prompt is hidden behind a flag.

I went through the upgrade process Mr. Smith outlined and it worked, sort of. Here are the steps I took:

  1. enable the flag chrome://flags#crostini-bullseye-upgrade
  2. reboot Chrome OS
  3. accept the prompt to upgrade to Bullseye
  4. open the Terminal app

  5. run the following shell commands:

    $ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt full-upgrade -y
$ sudo apt -y autoremove

Sure enough, after rebooting the system I got the upgrade prompt, accepted it, and watched a dialog reporting on the upgrade progress. A dozen minutes later the process ended with the following errors:

Failed to connect to bus: No data available
Failed to connect to bus: No data available
invoke-rc.d: initscript sudo, action "restart" failed.
Failed to connect to bus: No data available
dpkg: error processing package sudo (--configure):
 installed sudo package post-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 sudo
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I'm not sure what triggered the errors. But a few quick checks of Crostini suggested the installed apps work and nothing major seems broken. Therefore, I'm leaving the container upgraded to Bullseye 11.3 as is and monitor it.

#chromeOS #Linux

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