Hi Claudio,

Op 05-03-2026 om 10:48 schreef Claudio Vicario:

i have a Raspberry Pi 3 with Raspbian Lite (based on Deb11) and i need to upgrade to Raspbian Lite (based on Deb12), or the last version of Raspbian comparable with my Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.

Just in case you didn't find the answer yet, or someone stumbles on this
post: Unlike Debian, Raspberry Pi OS does not support in-place upgrades:

To update the operating system to a new major release on your Raspberry Pi, image a second SD card with the new release. Use a USB SD card reader or network storage to copy files and configuration from your current installation to the new SD card. Then, swap the new SD card into the slot on your Raspberry Pi, and boot.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/os.html#upgrade-your-operating-system-to-a-new-major-version

Regards,
Sijmen

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

At Sat, 4 Apr 2026 09:03:51 +0200 "Sijmen J. Mulder" <ik@sjmulder.nl> wrote:

Hi Claudio,

Op 05-03-2026 om 10:48 schreef Claudio Vicario:

i have a Raspberry Pi 3 with Raspbian Lite (based on Deb11) and i need to upgrade to Raspbian Lite (based on Deb12), or the last version of Raspbian comparable with my Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+.

Just in case you didn't find the answer yet, or someone stumbles on this post: Unlike Debian, Raspberry Pi OS does not support in-place upgrades:

To update the operating system to a new major release on your Raspberry Pi, image a second SD card with the new release. Use a USB SD card reader or network storage to copy files and configuration from your current installation to the new SD card. Then, swap the new SD card into the slot on your Raspberry Pi, and boot.

https://www.raspberrypi.com/documentation/computers/os.html#upgrade-your-operating-system-to-a-new-major-version

While this is probably the best option in general, I have in fact done
in-place upgrades of Raspberry Pis. What *I* did was manually edit the files
in /etc/apt/sources.list[.d], ran "apt update", then "apt full-upgrade" and "apt autoremove". It worked reasonably well. (I've also done this with Beagle Boards as well.)

Regards,
Sijmen

--
Robert Heller -- Cell: 413-658-7953 GV: 978-633-5364
Deepwoods Software -- Custom Software Services
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--- PyGate Linux v1.5.13
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

Robert Heller <heller@deepsoft.com>:

While this is probably the best option in general, I have in fact done in-place upgrades of Raspberry Pis. What *I* did was manually edit the files in /etc/apt/sources.list[.d], ran "apt update", then "apt full-upgrade" and "apt autoremove". It worked reasonably well. (I've also done this with Beagle Boards as well.)

I've used the approach you describe on this box since 2016
https://steinar.bang.priv.no/2016/05/06/using-a-raspberry-pi-2-model-b-as-a-routerfirewall-for-the-home-lan/

If that stops working I will create a new SD card from scratch.

But so far this has worked for 10 years (ie. same SD card, but the rPi
itself has actually been swapped, since a lightning stroke took out the
first one...)

I actually burned out the very first SD card in the first month, but
that is a different story...
https://steinar.bang.priv.no/2016/07/03/logging-to-persistent-tmpfs-on-raspbian-jessie/

--- PyGate Linux v1.5.14
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)