Re: What are your best practices for running Debian unstable?

[Aniruddha <mailingdotlist@gmail.com>]

On Sat, Mar 12, 2011 at 1:43 PM, darkestkhan <darkestkhan@gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't check Debian Weather, and I don't see a reason why should I do
> dist-upgrade, after all I'm running sid constantly

There is a difference between upgrade and dist-upgrade. I prefer to do
an upgrade first followed by a dist-upgrade. From man apt-get:


       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 circumstances 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 versions of packages are available.

       dist-upgrade
           dist-upgrade in addition to performing the function of
upgrade, also intelligently handles changing 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. So, dist-upgrade command may remove some
packages. The /etc/apt/sources.list file contains a list of locations
from which to
           retrieve desired package files. See also apt_preferences(5)
for a mechanism for overriding the general settings for individual
packages.