[Gllug] Back-out plans on Debian/Redhat?

[Bruce Richardson]

On Sat, Mar 07, 2009 at 01:10:08PM +0000, Khusro wrote:
> I am NOT going from Etch to Lenny, just to be clear.
> 
> I thought even within Etch for example, when applying the updates, you
> should do a 'apt-get dist-upgrade' or 'aptitude dist-upgrade'? Not
> just an 'apt-get upgrade'? Maybe I'm wrong about that?

If you run a simple 'apt-get upgrade' on a system that is out of date,
you may notice that some packages are listed as being held back.  That
is because the new versions have new dependencies, on packages that you
do not currently have installed.  The 'upgrade' task will not install
new packages, so it cannot upgrade those packages.

If you want to upgrade even where this means adding new packages to the
system, run 'dist-upgrade', because that will resolve new dependencies
for you without prompting.

It's important to have these two different classes of upgrade, by the
way, so that sysadmins can be conservative and not risk a change in
behaviour by the addition of unkown, arbitrary packages.

If you are tracking a stable distribution of Debian then you should
never need to use dist-upgrade, because the stable distribution only
recieves security patches and doesn't get new versions with new
dependencies.  The only time you would need dist-upgrade would be when
there is a new release.  At which point you have a whole bunch of
testing to do.


-- 
Bruce

I object to intellect without discipline.  I object to power without
constructive purpose. -- Spock
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 204 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://mailman.lug.org.uk/pipermail/gllug/attachments/20090307/116eb18f/attachment.pgp>
-------------- next part --------------
-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug