Faulty Software Updater on 16.04

[Bret Busby]

On 18/08/2017, Ralf Mardorf <silver.bullet at zoho.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 18 Aug 2017 05:26:09 +0800, Bret Busby wrote:
>>The window does not provide a button "Show details", and, does not
>>allow me to copy and paste the text that is displayed in the window.
>
> Hi,
>
> you cold open a terminal, to run the following commands
>
>   sudo apt update
>   sudo apt full-upgrade
>   sudo apt autoremove
>
> and post the commands + their output. Ensure that your MUA
> doesn't wrap the lines.
>
> This is not the procedure to fix issues, it's just a procedure to
> upgrade and to tidy up, so it might report issues.
>
> Regards,
> Ralf
>

After a crash of Firefox, which destroyed the session, I progressively
shut down the remaining applications and rebooted the system, and,
tried the system upgrade.

I ran
sudo apt update
 which told me that 219 packages can be updated;

"
:~$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password:
Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Hit:2 http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Get:3 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease [102 kB]
Get:4 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-backports InRelease [102 kB]
Get:5 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security InRelease [102 kB]
Fetched 306 kB in 2s (106 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
219 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
"

My understanding, from the ensuing discussion, is that the next
suggested command;
 sudo apt full-upgrade
leads to a distribution upgrade.

I am using 16.04, which is an LTS version, and, performing a
distribution upgrade, would eliminate the LTS-ness.

In going to the Software Updater, it apparently, no longer allows the
option of choosing which packages to upgrade, and, which to not
upgrade.

Due to a problem encountered with an upgrade from Firefox 53 to 54, on
another computer, and subsequent malware appearing in Firefox,
apparently consequential to that upgrade, I do not trust Firefox after
the version that I am using on this computer, which version, is 53.0.3
(64 bit).

As I can no longer choose which packages are upgraded, and, which are
not, it appears that I can no longer, safely upgrade Ubuntu Linux.

Something has changed, that has removed the choice of which packages
are to be upgraded, and, the change is bad.

-- 

Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia

..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
 Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
 "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
 A Trilogy In Four Parts",
 written by Douglas Adams,
 published by Pan Books, 1992

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