Bug#977477: release-notes: Update apt upgrade guidance (Was: Re: Bug#977477: apt: Adding progression indication to apt-get output)

[Julian Andres Klode <jak@debian.org>]

Control: reassign -1 release-notes
Control: retitle -1 release-notes: Update apt upgrade guidance

On Tue, Dec 15, 2020 at 03:40:55PM +0100, Samuel Thibault wrote:
> Package: apt
> Version: 2.1.12
> Severity: normal
> 
> Hello,
> 
> The release notes tell people that they should basically use
> 
> apt-get upgrade
> apt-get dist-upgrade
> 
> But people tend to rather use
> 
> apt upgrade
> apt dist-upgrade

> The problem is that these are not equivalent: apt upgrade will attempt
> to install additional packages required by newer versions of existing
> packages. That can lead to conflicts/breaks with other existing
> packages, and thus get into all the complexity that using apt-get
> upgrade first avoids.

You mean that using apt upgrade upgrades more packages already, and
hence dist-upgrade has less conflicts? :D You can argue that in circles,
you don't know which is going to be better.

Of course people are free to apt upgrade --without-new-pkgs. The
optimal way to upgrade likely is

    apt upgrade --without-new-pkgs
    apt upgrade
    apt full-upgrade

which is equivalent to

    apt-get upgrade
    apt-get upgrade --with-new-pkgs
    apt-get dist-upgrade

> 
> The problem is then that actual users end up in *other* situations than
> what would typically be tested according to the release notes.

People should test apt for interactive systems, and apt-get for
non-interactive systems, as always.

Enabling progress for apt-get - the legacy scripting frontend -
is a no-go. As is removing it from apt - the interactive user's
frontend.

-- 
debian developer - deb.li/jak | jak-linux.org - free software dev
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