Ubuntu server holding back on me

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Thu, 21 Sep 2017 13:29:12 -0700, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>As I understand it, dist-upgrade takes me to the latest release.

Hi,

other subscribers already explained that you are mistaken. However, I
wonder how you could (mis)understand that a "dist-upgrade" would
upgrade to the next Ubuntu release, let alone that the term
"full-upgrade" should be clear.

Nowhere the man pages mention an upgrade to the next Ubuntu release.

[root at moonstudio ~]# lsb_release -dc;echo apt;man apt|grep upgrade\ \( -A3|head -7;echo apt-get;man apt-get|grep upgrade -A3|head -20|tail -12 
Description:	Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS
Codename:	xenial
apt
       upgrade (apt-get(8))
           upgrade is used to install available upgrades of all packages currently installed on the system from the sources configured via sources.list(5). New packages will be
           installed if required to statisfy dependencies, but existing packages will never be removed. If an upgrade for a package requires the remove of an installed package the
           upgrade for this package isn't performed.
--
       full-upgrade (apt-get(8))
           full-upgrade performs the function of upgrade but will remove currently installed packages if this is needed to upgrade the system as a whole.
apt-get
       upgrade
           upgrade is used to install the newest versions of all packages currently installed on the system from the sources enumerated in /etc/apt/sources.list. Packages currently
           installed with new versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no circumstances are currently installed packages removed, or packages not already installed retrieved
           and installed. New versions of currently installed packages that cannot be upgraded without changing the install status of another package will be left at their current
           version. An update must be performed first so that apt-get knows that new versions of packages are available.

       dist-upgrade
           dist-upgrade in addition to performing the function of upgrade, also intelligently handles changing dependencies with new versions of packages; apt-get has a "smart" conflict
           resolution system, and it will attempt to upgrade the most important packages at the expense of less important ones if necessary. The dist-upgrade command may therefore
           remove some packages. The /etc/apt/sources.list file contains a list of locations from which to retrieve desired package files. See also apt_preferences(5) for a mechanism
           for overriding the general settings for individual packages.

Sure, instead of doing a release upgrade by "do-release-upgrade",
https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/serverguide/installing-upgrading.html you
could use dist-upgrade, after manually replacing the repositories.

On Thu, 21 Sep 2017 13:30:51 -0700, Kevin O'Gorman wrote:
>I really just want to know why the disconnect between what login says
>and what APT says.

What are you talking about? What does "login" say?

Regards,
Ralf