do-release-upgrade fails in 20.10 because of pop-desktop marked as essential

[Adam]

I cannot install Pop!_OS 21.04 because the pop-desktop package in it is marked as essential and the package manager requires to remove it to upgrade. I haven't found any suitable solutions, only to uninstall the pop-desktop manually and that wrecked the installation on my other computer (having 20.10 too).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Pop!_OS 20.10
Package: ubuntu-release-upgrader-core 1:20.10.16 [origin: Ubuntu]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.8.0-7630.32~1609193707~20.10~781bb80-generic 5.8.17
Uname: Linux 5.8.0-7630-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu50.7
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CrashDB: ubuntu
CurrentDesktop: pop:GNOME
Date: Sun Aug 8 13:14:42 2021
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: ubuntu-release-upgrader
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to groovy on 2021-08-08 (0 days ago)

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

The `ubuntu-release-upgrader` works with Ubuntu systems, and was not intended to work with non-Ubuntu systems.

Refer to https://support.system76.com/articles/upgrade-pop and like wiki links for upgrade instructions for Pop OS.