Slink->Potato, Perl version

["Marcus" <lists@wordit.com>]

I have slink installed and want to upgrade to potato, but I'm
relatively new to Debian (and Linux). I read two explanations on
upgrading, but still have a few newbie type questions:

Is "apt-get upgrade" sufficient, and what does "apt-get dist-upgrade"
do?
I read that I should make sure all packages are _not_ on hold. Is there
an easy way to do that without dselect?

Perl 5.6x is not in potato, and if I upgrade I'd like to ignore
Perl-5.005 and get 5.6. How do I do that using apt-get?

Primarily I'm interested in upgrading to Perl 5.6, latest Gnome, and
Xfree 4 (It has TT-Fonts, I believe?), but from what I read, a system
upgrade is recommended.

Thanks,

Marcus Friedlaender