apt-get not updating GUI packages?

[Colin Watson]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 08:49:58PM +0200, Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC) wrote:
> Thank you for the command update, however the apt upgrade command revealed
> the same issue as its predecessor. As the mailserver has edited
> configuration files for fetchmail, Dovecot and a few others a full-upgrade
> is a little less desirable as reading the man page for apt scared me a
> little i.e.:  full-upgrade performs the function of upgrade but will REMOVE
> CURRENTLY INSTALLED PACKAGES IF THIS IS NEEDED TO UPGRADE THE SYSTEM AS A
> WHOLE.

It will prompt you before it removes anything, so you can review the
list of packages to be removed and say "no" if there's anything you
don't approve of there.

"apt upgrade" is a middle ground between "apt-get upgrade" and "apt
full-upgrade"; it will install new packages if needed, but it won't
remove currently-installed packages.

> OK so I am a relative newbie to Linux and the cli but still.
> Seeing as the packages that were stopped from upgrading do not indicate
> files I might need i.e. fetchmail, my questions still remains why apt will
> not update 5 files yet using synaptic via a GUI will especially since apt, I
> assume, is the back-end to Synaptic, or am I stuck using the GUI when I
> thought the CLI out manoeuvred the GUI?
> 
> As I hope you can see the bigger question is why Synaptic can upgrade the
> packages left by apt yet apt, apparently being the back-end to Synaptic,
> can't?

apt certainly can - you're just choosing to use it in a particular
extremely-conservative mode where it refuses to do so.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       [cjwatson at ubuntu.com]