Re: apt-get upgrade vs. dist-upgrade

[cjwatson@flatline.org.uk (Colin Watson)]

Ole Sebastian Stein <osstein@opera.com> wrote:
>What are the differences between apt-get upgrade and apt-get
>dist-upgrade?

Look in the apt-get(8) man page:

       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 cir­
              cumstances   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 ver­
              sions of packages are available.

[...]

       dist-upgrade
              dist-upgrade, in addition to performing  the  func­
              tion  of upgrade, also intelligently handles chang­
              ing 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 /etc/apt/sources.list file contains
              a  list of locations from which to retrieve desired
              package files.

-- 
Colin Watson                                  [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]