Karmic Beta version

[David Curtis]

On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:17:59 -0400
Tim Tebbit <ttebbit at gmail.com> wrote:

> David Curtis wrote:
> > On Tue, 29 Sep 2009 10:36:59 -0400
> > Tim Tebbit <ttebbit at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> >>
> >> Require the CD? Why not just edit your sources.list accordingly and
> >> upgrade?
> > 
> > A bad idea. The proper way to release upgrade is to use
> > update-manager. An 'update-manager -d' in a terminal or from
> > Alt-F2. Update-manager has specific problem solving mechanisms that
> > dist-upgrade does not have, your method could result in broken deps
> > and a half upgraded machine.
> > 
> > Dave
> 
> Care to elaborate on the finer points of that?
> 
> I suspect the recommendation of avoiding the manual way if you will,
> is to avoid conflicting documentation showing timtowtdi.
  

My understanding is that, in the beginning, update-manager's job was to
do some serious situ checking and then begin an apt-get dist-upgrade.
Things like disk space, meta-packages all installed (most important),
edit sources.list, restart apt-get if it exits. Soon it became a way to
solve the bigger problem of removing/replacing sets of softwares,
something that is not in apt-get's scope of purpose.

Update-manager downloads hint files that direct a release-
upgrade's upgrade path to the preferred Ubuntu set of packages
rather than just a direct upgrade of all installed packages. I would
think you would get a lot of the dreaded 'some packages were held back'
message with 'apt-get dist-upgrade'. If these packages are fundamental
to Ubuntu functioning/booting you're gonna get screwed.

Unfortunately I can't find much on google about this or docs for
update-manager, but I'm sure you have a very good chance at not winding
up with the same end result and desired OS function if update-manager is
not used. If I knew of a specific package/set of packages that would
need update-manager's hint file capabilities, going from JJ to KK, I
would point it out. Perhaps upstart?

If it was just timtowtdi, then I would think that the Ubuntu team
would not specifically indicate what methods are 'supported' and that
dist-upgrade is not.

A few previous (hot-headed,conflicting,ambiguous) discussions:

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel/2006-July/019393.html
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/sounder/2006-July/008083.html
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-discuss/2008-July/004809.html


I've put these ideas together over the last six months or so from
hearsay and conjecture and could use a semi-official explanation on
exactly how update-manager works. Or actually, an advanced doc on
update-manger would be nice. If anyones listening...


Dave