Silverblue is an operating system for your desktop built on Fedora Linux. It’s excellent for daily use, development, and container-based workflows. It offers numerous advantages such as being able to roll back in case of any problems. This article provides the steps to rebase to the newly released Fedora Linux 43 Beta, and how to revert if anything unforeseen happens.
NOTE: Before attempting an upgrade to the Fedora Linux 43 Beta, apply any pending upgrades.
Updating using the terminal
Because Fedora LInux 43 Beta is not available in GNOME Software, the whole process must be done through a terminal.
First, check if the 43 branch is available, which should be true now:
$ ostree remote refs fedora
You should see the following line in the output:
fedora:fedora/43/x86_64/silverblue
If you want to pin the current deployment (this deployment will stay as an option in GRUB until you remove it), you can do it by running:
# 0 is entry position in rpm-ostree status
$ sudo ostree admin pin 0
To remove the pinned deployment use following command ( “2” corresponds to the entry position in the output from rpm-ostree status ):
$ sudo ostree admin pin --unpin 2
Next, rebase your system to the Fedora 43 branch.
$ rpm-ostree rebase fedora:fedora/43/x86_64/silverblue
Finally, the last thing to do is restart your computer and boot to Fedora Silverblue 43 Beta.
How to revert
If anything bad happens — for instance, if you can’t boot to Fedora Silverblue 43 Beta at all — it’s easy to go back. Pick the previous entry in the GRUB boot menu (you need to press ESC during boot sequence to see the GRUB menu in newer versions of Fedora Silverblue), and your system will start in its previous state. To make this change permanent, use the following command:
$ rpm-ostree rollback
That’s it. Now you know how to rebase to Fedora Silverblue 43 Beta and fall back. So why not do it today?
Known issues
FAQ
Because there are similar questions in comments for each blog about rebasing to newer version of Silverblue I will try to answer them in this section.
Question: Can I skip versions during rebase of Fedora Linux? For example from Fedora Silverblue 41 to Fedora Silverblue 43?
Answer: Although it could be sometimes possible to skip versions during rebase, it is not recommended. You should always update to one version above (41->42 for example) to avoid unnecessary errors.
Question: I have rpm-fusion layered and I got errors during rebase. How should I do the rebase?
Answer: If you have rpm-fusion layered on your Silverblue installation, you should do the following before rebase:
rpm-ostree update --uninstall rpmfusion-free-release --uninstall rpmfusion-nonfree-release --install rpmfusion-free-release --install rpmfusion-nonfree-release
After doing this you can follow the guide in this article.
Question: Could this guide be used for other ostree editions (Fedora Atomic Desktops) as well like Kinoite, Sericea (Sway Atomic), Onyx (Budgie Atomic),…?
Yes, you can follow the Updating using the terminal part of this guide for every ostree edition of Fedora. Just use the corresponding branch. For example for Kinoite use fedora:fedora/43/x86_64/kinoite
David Levner
$ ostree remote refs fedora
List remote refs
…
error: Command requires a –repo argument
Yaser
Also the bootc image is fine, I did rebase:
Scott Trakker
What is the place to report bugs?
When I try to upgrade I get the following error:
error: Could not depsolve transaction; 2 problems detected:
Problem 1: The operation would result in removing the following protected packages: systemd
Problem 2: The operation would result in removing the following protected packages: systemd
Richard England
You can try the Ask Fedora site. Someone there may be able to clarify the problem.
Information for opening a bug report can be found at this link.
Scott Trakker
Thanks!
NotMe
error: Updating rpm-md repo ‘fedora-cisco-openh264-debuginfo’: cannot update repo ‘fedora-cisco-openh264-debuginfo’: Cannot prepare internal mirrorlist: Status code: 404 for https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?protocol=https&repo=fedora-cisco-openh264-debug-43&arch=x86_64 (IP: 85.236.55.6); Last error: Status code: 404 for https://mirrors.fedoraproject.org/metalink?protocol=https&repo=fedora-cisco-openh264-debug-43&arch=x86_64 (IP: 38.145.32.20)
what is this error ? i cannot rebase to 43
Scott Trakker
I guess ‘fedora-cisco-openh264-debuginfo’ is a layered package?
Remove it an try the rebase again. After that you can tr to reinstall the package again.
Richard England
A 404 error indicates that the site is not available. I am seeing the same error. The server may be down/unavailable for some reason. You might try again later.
Perhaps ping the IP addresses to see if it is available or try to open the URL in a browser to see if you can connect.
Richard England
Word is that there is a config issue and the debug repo does not exist and should not have been enabled. As Scott Traker said, remove that layered package and try again.
This issue is being raised to the powers-that-be.
Walter Frazier
I’m new at this and just curious so I started at the update using terminal and cut & paste in terminal to get the following comment:
error: Command requires a –repo argument
I’ll do it with the iso.
Richard England
You can try the Ask Fedora site. Someone there may be able to clarify the problem.
Walter Frazier
Thanks, found the install documents in the Fedora Magazine, my slow internet connection and USB Live combo made my searches slow and I just needed a little patience. Install and update to 43 preview went smoothly and I’m having fun with it now, pretty impressive!
Fedora user
Fedora 42 is running on the system.
For your information:
The Disk Capacity is showing as “Unknown” in System Details Settings.
Richard England
You are more likely to find someone to assist you at the Ask Fedora site.
Fedora user
Thank you.