difference between "do-release-upgrade" and "apt-get dist-upgrade"

[Christopher Chan]

On Tuesday, October 05, 2010 10:54 AM, Tom H wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 10:15 PM, Christopher Chan
> <christopher.chan at bradbury.edu.hk>  wrote:
>> On Tuesday, October 05, 2010 04:13 AM, Tom H wrote:
>>> On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 4:03 PM, Alan Pope<alan at popey.com>    wrote:
>>>> On 4 October 2010 19:25, Cybe R. Wizard<cyber_wizard at mindspring.com>    wrote:
>>>>> If done, doesn't the apt-get method do just what 'release-upgrade -d'
>>>>> or 'do-release-upgrade do'?  IIANM, there is no difference in the end
>>>>> product; it's just easier on the inexperienced to not need to remember
>>>>> all the different steps to do.
>>>>
>>>> No, as I mentioned in my other mail, do-release-upgrade and
>>>> update-manager work around specific known quirks in the upgrade
>>>> process that apt-get/aptitude/dpkg don't cater for themselves.
>>>
>>> The fact that do-release-upgrade is a comprehensive one-step solution
>>> doesn't mean that you can't upgrade to a new release using "apt-get
>>> dist-upgrade" or "aptitude full-upgrade". There are simply more steps
>>> to take.
>>>
>>
>> Alan is talking about circular dependencies and other such like rubbish.
>> There have been those who hosed their installation because they used
>> apt-get dist-upgrade to upgrade. And there have been those who have not
>> been toasted by upgrading with apt-get dist-upgrade. It all pretty much
>> depends on what you have or have not installed.
>
> It depends on how different the version you're upgrading and the
> version you're upgrading to are different. To upgrade with
> dist-upgrade from 8.04 to 10.04, you'd most probably have to use many
> steps and upgrade twice because of the udev and kernel changes (like
> the upcoming upgrade from lenny to squeeze). To upgrade with
> dist-upgrade from 10.04 to 10.10 is fairly simple.
>

IIRC, those who did report hosing their installation were doing upgrades 
to non-LTS releases like Inteprid and Jaunty. I am still on Jaunty and I 
survived dist-upgrade without much trouble but that was me. In other 
words, apt-get dist-upgrade is not recommended and you get to keep the 
pieces. That has been the direction for quite some time now. This ain't 
Debian. This is funky Ubuntu.