4 updates held back for 3 weeks...

[Willy Hamra]

2009/7/10 Nigel Ridley <nigel at prayingforisrael.net>:
> Derek Broughton wrote:
>> Willy Hamra wrote:
>>
>>> 2009/7/10 Johnny Ernst Nielsen <j_e_n_pub at yahoo.dk>:
>>
>>>> If I leave my sources unchanged, will dist-upgrade upgrade to 9.10
>>>> come october
>>> no. the name, i admit, is somewhat deceiving, but it doesn't actually
>>> upgrade to another distribution. that might have been the intended
>>> feature when it was first created, but the way the ubuntu repositories
>>> work, this can't happen.
>>
>> Precisely.  Debian, where this came from has repositories named "stable",
>> "testing", and "unstable", and these are linked to the _current_
>> repositories at each of those levels.  So rather than pointing your sources
>> to "etch" or "sid", you might just use "stable" or "unstable", and when new
>> releases occur, the symlinks are changed and dist-upgrade picks up the
>> changes.  Ubuntu doesn't do this (though I wish they would).
>
> So what is the difference between 'apt-get upgrade'; 'apt-get safe-upgrade' and 'apt-get
> dist-upgrade' (in Kubuntu)?
>
> Blessings,
>
> Nigel
>

in apt-get and aptitude, upgrade and safe-upgrade are the same. they
upgrade all packages that doesn't require the removal of previously
installed packages (some packages can't be installed with each other,
one removes the other), and avoids any package that will cause
dependency conflict.
full-upgrade and dist-upgrade are the same, and these will upgrade
regardless of conflicts. of course, not blindly upgrading, but will
try to resolve all dependncy conflicts in a rational manner. removing
what needs to be removed, upgrading, if a package downgrade can
resolve a lot of stuck issues, a downgrade is performed. aptitude
usually offers choices and you can choose what best solution suits
you. but this kind of conflicts, is what dist-upgrade and full-upgrade
are made for :)


-- 
Willy K. Hamra
Manager of Hamra Information Systems