[Wylug-help] Debian package confusion upgrade vs dist-upgrade

[Chris Davies]

Hi folks,

Felix Ulrich-Oltean wrote:
> I have a Debian unstable system and I used to happily 'apt-get
> dist-upgrade' every now and again to get all the latest versions.  Now
> though, if I dist-upgrade it wants to add all this stuff that I
> haven't (knowingly) asked for - mainly gnome stuff.  However, if I
> only use update, it "holds back" certain packages, like blender which
> I'd like to upgrade because it crashes at the moment in certain
> instances.

I've only just seen this email, so it may be that I'm /way/ too late with the 
answer.

"apt-get dist-upgrade" will upgrade all the packages you've got installed that 
have newer versions. It will also install any necessary dependencies of those 
packages. "apt-get upgrade", on the other hand, won't install any new packages.

Thus, an installed package X that has a new version X(n) with a new dependency 
Y(n) will only be upgraded if you "apt-get dist-upgrade".

But, an installed package X that has an existing dependency Y can be upgraded 
with a simple "apt upgrade" to X(n) and Y(n) because you've already got both 
packages installed.

Hope this helps.
Chris

PS You might want to move from apt-get to aptitude. Similar command line 
interface but it handles package dependencies better: if you have a package X 
with dependency Y, it will remove the unused package Y for you if you remove 
package X