Re: apt-get update works fine; but apt-get upgrade does not

[Carl Fink <carl@fink.to>]

Please obey the list guidelines and don't respond directly to the author
unless specifically asked to.  I'm redirecting this back to the mailing
list.

On Tue, Jul 26, 2005 at 10:25:59PM -0500, Josh Battles wrote:

> So "apt-get upgrade" will only upgrade the packages you have installed
> whereas "apt-get dist-upgrade" will upgrade what you've got as well as
> installing new packages?

Not quite.  Sometimes a new version of a package adds a new dependency,
say a library that wasn't required before.  If that happens, "apt-get
upgrade" will balk.  You get a message that the package has been held
back.  On the other hand, "apt-get dist-upgrade" will just install the
newly-required package in order to meet the dependencies of the
already-installed package being upgraded, exactly the same way it would
if you had typed "apt-get install <package>".

By the way, aptitude does the same thing, this isn't a difference in
behavior.
-- 
Carl Fink                                         carl@fink.to
If you attempt to fix something that isn't broken, it will be.
        -Bruce Tognazzini