

Re: ye olde upgrade vs. dist-upgrade

On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 10:01:37AM -0800, Vineet Kumar wrote:
> * Bill Moseley (moseley@hank.org) [031205 08:38]:
> > 
> > My question is if sources.list specifies "woody" instead of "stable" so 
> > dist-upgrade will not someday upgrade to sarge" and since a "stable" 
> > distribution should not change dependencies, IS there a difference 
> > between using "upgrade" vs. "dist-upgrade" in that case?
> > 
> > I don't see that there is a difference.
> I think the answer is "probably not", but why not err on the side of
> caution?  I think it's kind of like the difference between using sudo or
> fakeroot to build a deb.  In theory, they should produce the same
> outcome.  But why would you issue a more powerful command when a simpler
> one will suffice?

Yes, you are right, the question was just academic.  I wanted to make
sure that I really understood the difference.  This was the result of
someone making the blanket statement to me that "dist-upgrade" was dangerous
and the wrong thing to use without explaining why - even when I had
explained that I use "stable" in my sources.list.  It's important to me
to make sure I understand things before responding to such statements.

True, "update" is the correct operation.  The (academic) question was
not that, but rather if I had a flaw in my understanding of the differences 
-- or if there were differences not enumerated clearly in the
documentation.  You know, someone says you are wrong and it's helpful to
make sure you are actually right before saying so... ;)


Bill Moseley

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