How do I install systemd from jessie backports?

I'm trying to upgrade my systemd from version 215 (the current version for jessie) to the backports version (version 230). I tried the straightforward approach of:

sudo apt-get install systemd/jessie-backports systemd-container/jessie-backports

However, this seems to have the negative side effect of uninstalling XFCE and a host of other bluetooth and networking things. To fix this, I had to boot into recovery mode, downgrade systemd, and reinstall task-xfce-desktop.

I don't understand exactly why this dependency exists, and I'm not sure how to diagnose it. Does someone know how to install systemd and not break XFCE on Jessie? Thanks.

Ross Light

Posted 2016-10-20T01:07:52.970

Reputation: 109

I'm not sure why this is being downvoted.. can you give me some explanation as to why this is not a good question? This gave me a good amount of grief for a day and the answer was not obvious, even after a whole bunch of Googling. – Ross Light – 2016-10-20T14:26:30.020

Answers

apt install -t jessie-backports systemd

(or apt-get instead of apt, if you prefer.)

This will automatically take all dependencies from jessie-bpo, if necessary.

Note, that you might want to install systemd-container, too.

user734746

Posted 2016-10-20T01:07:52.970

Reputation:

I have found the answer. Instead of using install, I had to use dist-upgrade.

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade systemd/jessie-backports systemd-container/jessie-backports udev/jessie-backports libpam-systemd/jessie-backports

It turns out that you have to explicitly include a couple of other dependencies (udev and libpam-systemd) in order to avoid swathes of other useful packages from being removed, like network-manager.

Ross Light

Posted 2016-10-20T01:07:52.970

Reputation: 109