Upgrading from Breezy to Dapper beta

[Michael Vogt]

On Wed, Apr 26, 2006 at 12:25:05PM +0100, David M wrote:
> Matt Zimmerman wrote in gmane.linux.ubuntu.user 
>  about: Re: Announcing Beta release of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS 
> > Sure, more information can be found here:
> > https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/release-upgrades
> >
> > "apt-get dist-upgrade" has never truly been sufficient, and this tool is a
> > solution to that problem, not its source.  Upgrading to a new Ubuntu release
> > is a complex high-level operation which is not easily addressed with the
> > kinds of heuristics used to support incremental upgrades.
> 
> Interesting..
> 
> I'm a bit old-skool (in some ways) and therefore have become quite used
> to (and quite fond of) 'apt-get dist-upgrade' and its simplicity and
> justworksfulness compared to some other distros' upgrade methods.

I think Matt wanted to point out that you usually had to follow the
UpgradeNotes on the wiki for a "complete" upgrade. This involved (in
the past) stuff like adding new groups or similar things. The new
upgrade tool automates this process pretty much. 
 
> Not that this means that I'm not open to new ways of Making Life Even
> Easier for Myself, of course :)
> 
> However, it does sound a little as though some of us "must unlearn what 
> we have learned". ;-)

Not really, no. The old way of upgrading (by following the
UpgradeNotes) is still supported of course. This is really meant to
make your life easier :)

> > The availability of a GUI tool should not have any impact on users who
> > choose not to use it.  You may still perform upgrades using the command-line
> > tools, and resolve any difficulties manually, just as you always have.
> >
> > But for those who want it to "just work", there is now a more suitable
> > option.  It is a complementary use case.
> 
> Well, if it's safe to run with, I'm prepared to give it a go! It just
> feels a little "funny" to part with one of the stable "foundation stones" 
> which Debian-based systems have become famous for..

Under the hood the "foundation stones" (libapt) is still used. The
Upgrader uses python-apt and essentially the same algorithms that
apt-get uses.
 
 > [/wibblyib-wibblyib/, time passes..]
> 
> OK, I've now tried: gksudo "update-manager -d"
> 
> and it tells me that it can't upgrade 'totem' (not a major problem for
> me, I presume I can reinstall it later, otherwise I can live without it
> for now), but that it is planning to install only 6 packages:
> 
> linux-image-2.6.12-10-386
> linux-image-386
> linux-restricted-modules-2.6.12-10-386
> linux-restricted-modules-386
> python-vte
> update-manager
> 
> 
> Is this OK? Am I right in thinking that the update-manager is doing the
> minimum it needs to in order to upgrade itself, and then, afterwards,
> I'll need to run it again in order to actually dist-upgrade?
> And it'll take care automatically of all changes needed to
> /etc/apt/sources.list and I won't have to update it myself?
> (I've never used the update-manager before, always apt-get)

That is fine so far. It looks like you have a older version of
update-manager installed that is not yet capable of upgrading. But the
upgrade includes a new update-manager and a new python-vte so that
should give you the required version. If you run "update-manager -d"
again after the upgrade you should see a button that lets you upgrade
in the main gui of update-manager.

Cheers,
 Michael

-- 
Linux is not The Answer. Yes is the answer. Linux is The Question. - Neo