Bug#1073119: apt: Clarify dist-upgrade & full-upgrade are identical, and pick one as preferred, in man pages
On Thu, Jun 13, 2024 at 11:48:09AM GMT, Roy Orbitson wrote:
> Package: apt
> Version: 2.7.14build2
> Severity: minor
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> The man pages do not make it clear that the full-upgrade and
> dist-upgrade commands are aliases that perform the same operation.
>
> In doc/apt.8.xml, only full-upgrade is mentioned but apt accepts both.
Well yes that is intentional, dist-upgrade is a misleading name, so
the more user-friendly apt(8) tool has it renamed to full-upgrade, but
of course we keep muscle memory compatibility modes.
We support various other typo/muscle memory aliases that aren't necessarily
documented.
>
> In doc/apt-get.8.xml, full-upgrade is not listed as an alias but is
> mentioned under the update option where dist-upgrade is not.
That's weird but stuff happens.
>
> Both man pages should list both commands as alternate terms, and all
> references to the command in the synopsis and other sections should only
> use the preferred term. Ideally, both documents would prefer the same
> term, for consistency, but at least each should be self-consistent.
I must say I don't care much about these nitpicks. The manual pages are
in total disarray and need to be rewritten from scratch, with one per
subcommand, they're not useful in their current shape.
--
debian developer - deb.li/jak | jak-linux.org - free software dev
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