Patrick Bartek wrote: > Chris Bannister wrote: > > Patrick Bartek wrote: > > > Chris Bannister wrote: > > > > Patrick Bartek wrote: > > > > > Just remember when updating to use dist-upgrade instead of > > > > > regular upgrade to have the most current files installed > > > > > instead of just the "fixes" for old installed files. > > > > > > > > As discussed on this list in the past, that can get you into > > > > trouble! > > > > > > > > The recommended procedure is to upgrade first, THEN dist-upgrade, > > > > BUT ONLY IF you are satisfied with what is going to be removed and > > > > replaced. > > > > > > > > IOW, answer no to the dist-upgrade question if you are not happy > > > > with what it is going to do your system. Good advice. > > > All this is common sense, a commodity that's not all that common > > > anymore. Never update/upgrade via cron. I always check before > > > pressing Enter even with Stable and plain old upgrade. Stable is not Unstable. Unstable is not Stable. It is possible to mostly automate Stable. Untable is similar to doing a major release at any unscheduled time and I would not automate. > > I was referring to your statement: > > "Just remember when updating to use dist-upgrade instead of regular > > upgrade ..." which is not the recommended practice. > > After a little reading, in general, I see your point. However, I still > think a judicious use of both upgrade and dist-upgrade is required to > keep Sid semi-viable. Which is exactly what Chris said in the part that you quoted. Chris Bannister wrote: > The recommended procedure is to upgrade first, THEN dist-upgrade, BUT > ONLY IF you are satisfied with what is going to be removed and replaced. > > IOW, answer no to the dist-upgrade question if you are not happy with > what it is going to do your system. I consider that advice to be judicious use of both upgrade and dist-upgrade. And I recommend this procedure to anyone running Testing or Unstable Sid. Also safe on Stable. Good general advice. Note that there is a huge difference between the Stable track and the Unstable Sid track. And difference between Stable and upgrading from the OldStable release to the new Stable release. The latter is rather like upgrading Unstable Sid at any time. The former is stable with only security upgrades and only rarely changes to the package list. Because of these differences the the way they must be administered must be different. For Stable it is possible to mostly automate the application of security upgrades. Because Debian tries hard to make this easy. Unfortunately it isn't always possible to fully automate due to the way some projects handle security. Firefox doesn't support security tracks and always forces a large version upgrade. BIND almost always increments to a newer versioned set of support libraries. And there are others. So those usually require some action beyond "upgrade". But for the most part the others in Stable require only "upgrade". It is a special case because care is taken to make it work. Bob
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