Re: Dist-upgrade or upgrade. Which?
----- Original Message -----
> From: Jochen Spieker <ml@well-adjusted.de>
> To: debian-user@lists.debian.org
> Cc:
> Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2013 2:25 AM
> Subject: Re: Dist-upgrade or upgrade. Which?
>
> Patrick Bartek:
>>
>> I've been using Wheezy 64-bit for several months now, and as
>> recommended[1] having been using "dist-upgrade" for upgrading it.
> My
>> sources-list[2] is set to "Wheezy" and not "testing" as
> per those same
>> instructions. When Wheezy is promoted to "Stable" should I
> switch to
>> "apt-get upgrade" instead? Or does it really matter all that
> much?
>
> The main difference to keep in mind is that apt-get's upgrade operation
> will never change the set of installed packages. Ever. It will only
> upgrade already installed packages. No removals, no new packages.
Yes. I am aware of this. But it occurred to me: Once Wheezy becomes Stable, the only changes made to its code will be security and bug fixes. So, even a dist-upgrade should have the same effect as upgrade. At least, as far as the Main repository is concerned. Right? Contrib, nonfree or 3rd party repos might have a different effect.
> As the stable distribution mainly receives security updates, performing
> an upgrade is enough most of the time. (Point releases might be
> different.)
>
> [snip]
>
> To put it short: irrespective of Debian flavour, my advice is to
> habitually perform upgrades and only use dist-upgrade when you see it is
> actually necessary in order to upgrade certain packages.
This is something I'd been thinking about. What overall affect would mixing upgrade and dist-upgrade, if even only for select packages, have on a "Stable" system? Could that possibly "break" it? It was one of the reasons for my initial inquiry.
B
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