Debian dist-upgrade from Wheezy to Jessie

I needed a couple of recent software versions (Lyx version> 2.1 and Latex), and they were not available in the wheezy-backports, therefore I decided to upgrade from Debian Wheezy, the current stable version to Debian Jessie, the testing version. Debian Install FAQ.

This page gives the configuration changes and commands to be used:

1. Edit /etc/apt/sources.list and replace all occurrences of "wheezy" with "jessie".
2. run apt-get update
3. run apt-get upgrade
4. run apt-get dist-upgrade

For several reasons the upgrade process didn't complete properly. After a system reboot, there was no networking, no graphical desktop and even after starting the Gnome desktop by hand with "startx", there were several issues with system settings, such as printer setup.

Networking

I had an issue with networking not working.
According to the debian page on network setup, changes below are not recommended (see below).

I fixed by editing/etc/network/interfaces

# Lines added from odoepner.wordpress.com
auto eth0 

allow-hotplug eth0

iface eth0 inet dhcp

Then ran as root

etc/init.d/networking start

And network was working again.

This page explains how to put this network as a managed interface again: 

But I shouldn't have done this.
According to the debian page on network setup: "Keep configuration of "/etc/network/interfaces" as simple as in the following".
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

No desktop manager at startup

I realised that there was no desktop manager at startup. I first followed answers to this question and edited  /etc/inittab. But it is not needed, because the boot manager systemd doesn't look into that configuration file.
I spent some time reading about a systemd controversy in Debian and why it doesn't matter so much in the end.

For the moment I start the Gnome desktop from a terminal with the command:

xstart

It looks like not all package had been upgraded.
I ran as root

apt-get upgrade -f

The following packages will be upgraded:
  live-tools

[...]

Preparing to unpack .../live-tools_4.0.2-1_all.deb ...
dpkg-divert: error: rename involves overwriting `/usr/bin/uptime' with
  different file `/usr/bin/uptime.orig.procps', not allowed

From Synaptic, I did a complete removal of the package live-tools.
After that many configuration steps took place. Printer setup utility was working again. And now there only remains a bluetooth issue.

Bluetooth issue

dpkg: error processing package gnome-bluetooth (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 bluez
 bluetooth
 gnome-bluetooth

Lyx upgraded to version 2.1.2

At least Lyx was upgraded to version 2.1.2. I had to "reconfigure LyX with Tools→Reconfigure;".Then I could create documents with Lyx again. And the R integration worked as well.

Upgrade might not have been needed

Afterwards, I realised that an upgrade might not have been needed:

"If you want to install a single package in Debian, you do not need to update the whole system. It can be done with three commands by inserting the repos for Testing and Unstable in /etc/apt/sources.list, fixing the distro you (mostly) wish by setting APT::Default-Release "stable" in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/local, then doing aptitude install packagae_name/testing -t testing"