update-manager vs apt-get

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Sat, Aug 05, 2006 at 02:15:46PM +0100, martin f krafft wrote:
> also sprach Matt Zimmerman <mdz at ubuntu.com> [2006.07.25.0956 +0100]:
> > The section "The actual upgrade" explains the additional logic.
> > The implementation "runs" APT via its API and tweaks the
> > selections to do the right thing.
> 
> Ah, now I see, it wasn't obvious to me until I read your short
> description. I've thus taken the liberty to add a short executive
> summary parargraph to the section.

In general, it is not appropriate to modify a specification which has been
approved and implemented without discussing with the spec author (in this
case, Michael Vogt).  Please review the changes with him for correctness and
to ensure that they do not change the meaning of the spec.

I've reverted the changes temporarily so that this step isn't forgotten.

> > dist-upgrade does a different and more general job.  The release
> > upgrade algorithm is specific to Ubuntu and to particular Ubuntu
> > releases.
> 
> I wonder if update-manager is designed with flexibility in mind and
> has a policy that we could easily amend for Debian. There is no
> doubt that the general idea behind update-manager (APT is not
> enough) would benefit Debian as well...

This should be clear from the spec.  update-manager downloads a tarball,
unpacks it, and runs a program inside.  There are few assumptions about what
that program does, and one could certainly be written for Debian.

-- 
 - mdz