On Sun, Oct 15, 2006 at 01:29:43PM -0500, cothrige wrote: > In reading online it seems that the standard practice to apply > security patches would be to run 'apt-get update' and then 'apt-get > upgrade'. I am curious if this really is the best way and if so, how > often should it be done? > > I use Fluxbox, and quickly switched from the default Gnome when I > first installed. But, before doing that, I noticed that there was > monitor of some sort which popped up in the notification area > announcing available updates. How reliable is this tool, and can it > be used from outside of Gnome? > > Just trying to get a grip on system maintenance and hoping to hear > some ideas from those here. Thanks in advance, > Hi Patrick, the best option if you want stability and (little or) no breakage is to run 'stable'. This is what Debian releases. Although there is now security support for testing also. > 'apt-get update' gets the latest information about what packages have been updated but does not install them. 'apt-get upgrade' installs (but does not remove) the new packages while 'apt-get dist-upgrade' can both install and remove packages. This is a paraphrase, so read 'man apt-get' for more complete info. Normally, with stable you only need 'apt-get update && apt-get upgarde' to keep your system up to date and secure say every month. This assumes you have the stable and stable security entries in your /etc/apt/sources.list. While 'apt-get upgrade' is 95% guarenteed to go flawlessly and most folks tend to automake this, it is still ok to do it by hand, if you want 100% assurance. Using stable is the main benefit to Debian. If you do not use stable (like me, as I use unstable), then all the above does not apply. You have to update/dist-upgrade as often as you can to keep up with bugs and security issues and the chance of installing something that may break your system is not as near to zero as it is with stable. This does not mean that Debian unstable is horrible and broken, it just takes more effort to keep working, secure and up-to-date which is why I use apt-listbugs and apt-changes! feel free to ask another question as they arise! cheers, Kev -- | .''`. == Debian GNU/Linux == | my web site: | | : :' : The Universal | debian.home.pipeline.com | | `. `' Operating System | go to counter.li.org and | | `- http://www.debian.org/ | be counted! #238656 | | my keysever: pgp.mit.edu | my NPO: cfsg.org |
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