This one time, at band camp, David wrote: > >despite reading the docs.. i've not quite figured the difference between > >apt-get upgrade > >and > >apt-get dist-upgrade > >Can anyone enlighten me in words of one syllable?
plain upgrades won't attempt to install new packages, so if a package upgrade pulls in a new dependency that didn't previously exist, the package will be "kept back". dist-upgrades don't have that constraint, and so will happily install new packages if need be. If you're using aptitude, then it'll even remove packages that are determined to be no longer used (i.e. you didn't explicitly install it and there are no packages that you did install that depend on it anymore). Within the same release, it's rare to have new dependencies appear so upgrade is used (well, unless you're living on the scabby bleeding edge), whereas new releases tend to have more different and exciting dependencies. dist-upgrade is thusly named because you "only" ever use it when upgrading between stable releases. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
