Re: APT-GET UPGRADE VS DIST-UPGRADE

[Marty <martyb@ix.netcom.com>]

Michael Marsh wrote:
> On 4/14/05, Marty <martyb@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> > dist-upgrade is stupid will happily rip out half your packages.  I also
> > learned the hard way.  dselect does far less damage.  To upgrade with
> > dselect just change APT::Default-Release in apt.conf
>
> I've routinely used dist-upgrade pretty much since first installing
> Debian at home.  I'm running sid, though, so it's not uncommon for
> dependencies to change.  In any case, apt-get doesn't do anything
> unless you tell it to proceed, so when you lose half of your
> installation it could be argued that it's a user problem as much as a
> dist-upgrade problem.  If you want to automate your upgrades, then
> dist-upgrade is probably not what you want, but then you can't get the
> benefits of apt-listbugs either.

I'm not sure you've gotten my point.  dselect uses apt too, but it is 
much smarter about upgrading a distribution.  The "user problem" is not 
being aware of it, which may be true in your case as well.  If you don't 
trust dselect's "smarter" approach or don't mind reinstalling dozens of 
packages, that's another issue.  On a fast machine it may hardly matter, 
and could be a good way of getting rid of cruft.