[Discuss] Debian 12 vs. WSL 1

[Rich Pieri]

Debian 12 was released last week(end). With it comes the mandatory
change to merged /usr.

https://wiki.debian.org/UsrMerge

This can break on WSL1 installs due to how WSL locks parts of the
filesystem. Debian's official recommendation is to reinstall the base
OS if you don't want to convert to WSL2. My workaround, tested on four
different machines, is to temporarily convert to WSL2 anyway:

* Install the usrmerge packages on Debian 11/WSL1 but don't execute.
* Convert the install to WSL2 (wsl --set-version Debian 2)
* Execute usrmerge (dpkg-reconfigure usrmerge)
* Revert to WSL1 (wsl --set-version Debian 1)

The full-upgrade should now work without tripping on usrmerge.

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