recommended sid upgrade method

[Neil Roeth <neil@debian.org>]

On Nov 18, Zenaan Harkness (zen@iptaustralia.net) wrote:
 > I assume that (generally speaking) as DD's (in NM training or otherwise)
 > are expected to have a reasonably up to date sid install, whether
 > native, chroot, or whatever.
 > 
 > What I'd like to know is, which upgrade command should I use. For
 > example, I currently know of, and have used, the following:
 > 
 > 1) apt-get upgrade
 > 2) apt-get dist-upgrade
 > 3) apt-get dslect-upgrade
 > 4) aptitude dist-upgrade
 > 5) wajig dist-upgrade
 > 
 > I never read the man pages enough to grok 1), so really always used 2),
 > up until a month or two back when I discovered 3), and I've looked with
 > interest at the difference in download size between 2) and 3). I guess I
 > need to read the man pages to grok the difference there again too.
 > Finally, now there is 5), and I wonder which one it corresponds to...

I do this in a nightly cron job:

apt-get update && apt-get -dy dist-upgrade

and then use "apt-get dist-upgrade" interactively.  I do the download in the
cron job so I do not have to wait for all the packages to download when I do
the interactive dist-upgrade.  This is especially useful on my laptop, which I
often dist-upgrade while disconnected from any network.  I also have
apt-listchanges installed so that I see what changes are being applied during
the dist-upgrade.

-- 
Neil Roeth