10 ms·

Better link with more info: http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20131214 http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20131214

rhizome 13y ago
It truly confuses me that the upgrade instructions are so obfuscated, bordering on unfindable. Can someone point me to the chapter where an upgrade from 7.1 to this version is covered? http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/index.en.html http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/in...
- bpeebles 13y ago
  Upgrading from any Debian 7 upgrade should just be: apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade
  - asuffield 13y ago
    You don't need that upgrade. The only difference between upgrade and dist-upgrade is that dist-upgrade can add and remove packages, while upgrade will decline to make any upgrades that would require this. As such, dist-upgrade is almost always the one you meant.
    - ksdkkdddd 13y ago
      In my experience, there's value in doing a standard upgrade before a dist-upgrade. It seems to help to fully update the system doing "upgrade" before "doing the upgrade" (dist-upgrade) that will uninstall things... That said, it can obviously be a bit of a waste to upgrade everything like gnome just to uninstall it immediately... As such, I typically manually uninstall large tasks then upgrade then dist-upgrade and manually add the tasks back. In "theory" it should just be as you say - one big dist-upgrade - but I've yet to encounter an upgrade that didn't need special attention and I have learned that minimizing the installed base being upgraded is a good first step to a smooth transition.
      - hrjet 13y ago
        Is all of this relevant to Debian based systems like Ubuntu as well?
        drill_sarge 13y ago
        Yes. To clarify: dist-upgrade upgrades everything, including installing or removing new dependencies. Upgrade upgrades the installed packages, but doesn't add or remove new packages. In theory only using "upgrade" is supposed to be safer (eg more unlikely to break something) but I have not encountered any problems when using dist-upgrade (disclaimer: when you rely on the standard distro repositories; if you use unstable programs/repos or 3rd party repos/PPAs in Ubuntu, it is more likely that dist-upgrade breaks something). But I do not agree with what ksdkkdddd said. There is not really a use to do upgrade and then dist-upgrade right after it, because upgrade doesn't magically fix something in case dist-upgrade breaks something. It works or it does not. Also if you use apt from the terminal (as you should) and not rely on graphical updaters you always get output on what may prevent upgrading and how to resolve it.
        ksdkkdddd 13y ago
        In my experience a package's ability to cope with a complex uninstall scenario generally improves with the initial upgrade - or any upgrade for that matter - (for example, sometimes dist-upgrade-specific issues are only discovered by the maintainer as part of the coordination for a release) and so (in my experience) the reliability of the "dist-upgrade" is usually increased by doing an "upgrade" first. Dist-upgrade is one of those things that "should work" of it's own accord, but there are ways of increasing the odds; I have found a pre-"dist-upgrade" upgrade is one. (Sometimes I'm impatient and only upgrade apt/aptitude before a dist-upgrade though.) I would say it makes more of a difference on systems that are infrequently upgraded in general since a few points away from the current versions aren't going to contain many differences anyways, but I'd certainly be more hesitant to dist-upgrade from a .0 release (6.0 to 7.x, for example). I'd almost rather clean-install in that scenario since it amounts to a similarly-sized download.
      - asuffield 13y ago
- juliocc 13y ago
  Just doing apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade should be enough. You have to be careful, do backups and all that, but that's basically all you need to do.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- null_ptr 13y ago
  apt-get update && apt-get upgrade There's nothing special about upgrading Debian between point releases.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    There's nothing special...except for the actual commands. Empathize with the newbie.
    - null_ptr 13y ago
      You're right. What I meant was that doing your regular system updates is enough to upgrade from 7.1 to 7.3, there's nothing special you need to do on top of that.
    - ars 13y ago
      You are supposed to run those commands every day, not just with a point release. When the newbie installed debian in the first place they were (should have been) told to do that. (And yes there is a tool that will do it automatically and email you if there are updates - apticron.)
      - chris_wot 13y ago
        Isn't it: apt-get dist-upgrade ???
        scurry 13y ago
        Not between point releases.
        perlgeek 13y ago
        The difference between 'dist-upgrade' and 'upgrade' is that 'dist-upgrade' will install new dependencies (additional methods) if necessary, while 'upgrade' holds back new versions of packages that add new dependencies. Between point releases, there really shouldn't be new dependencies. Maybe if some library is found to be totally broken from a security point of view it is replaced by another, but that happens very rarely. So usually, the two commands do exactly the same thing for point release upgrades.
- jlgaddis 13y ago
  As others have mentioned: $ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade In this particular case, from 7.1 to 7.3, "dist-upgrade" is not needed (you aren't upgrading from one distribution to another (e.g. from 6 to 7)).
  - guipsp 13y ago
    Well, sometimes you need to dist-upgrade, even when not switching distros.
    - RexRollman 13y ago
      How would you know when?
      - prg318 13y ago
        Some packages will be held back by apt-get until you "dist-upgrade" them and apt-get will notify you of the held back packages when you apt get "upgrade".
      - ars 13y ago
        If you get a lot of packages that it tries to uninstall. That's basically what dist-upgrade does: tries to uninstall the least number of packages to allow the update through. It never happens with a point release though - they are careful about that.
  - thesigil 13y ago
    dist-upgrade does not mean distribution upgrade, it just handles additional dependencies after an upgrade and it may remove some packages if necessary.
  - gernotk 13y ago
    This is not Ubuntu. Better use 'aptitude': sudo aptitude update && aptitude full-upgrade
    - 13y ago
- andrewaylett 13y ago
  If you're already on a 7.x install (codename 'wheezy') then per http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20131214 http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20131214 it suffices to enable the updates repository (which I believe is the default) and run `apt-get upgrade`. The release notes you linked to are for the original 7.0 release. I think that most people will pretty much ignore that there's a point release and continue to update their systems regularly -- unless you're installing a large number of systems or have particular requirements there seems little point in paying it specific attention.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    The release notes you linked to are for the original 7.0 release. The notes I linked are the ones linked from the post page on where the upgrade instructions can be found.
- 2jgi7 13y ago
  You don't actually have to do anything if you are already on Wheezy. Just update normally.
swetland 13y ago
Thanks. I was puzzled that there seemed to be no 7.2 to 7.3 release notes or change lists linked from the original URL... just stuff about 7.0.

It truly confuses me that the upgrade instructions are so obfuscated, bordering on unfindable. Can someone point me to the chapter where an upgrade from 7.1 to this version is covered? http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/index.en.html http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/release-notes/in...

bpeebles 13y ago
Upgrading from any Debian 7 upgrade should just be: apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade
- asuffield 13y ago
  You don't need that upgrade. The only difference between upgrade and dist-upgrade is that dist-upgrade can add and remove packages, while upgrade will decline to make any upgrades that would require this. As such, dist-upgrade is almost always the one you meant.
  - ksdkkdddd 13y ago
    In my experience, there's value in doing a standard upgrade before a dist-upgrade. It seems to help to fully update the system doing "upgrade" before "doing the upgrade" (dist-upgrade) that will uninstall things... That said, it can obviously be a bit of a waste to upgrade everything like gnome just to uninstall it immediately... As such, I typically manually uninstall large tasks then upgrade then dist-upgrade and manually add the tasks back. In "theory" it should just be as you say - one big dist-upgrade - but I've yet to encounter an upgrade that didn't need special attention and I have learned that minimizing the installed base being upgraded is a good first step to a smooth transition.
    - hrjet 13y ago
      Is all of this relevant to Debian based systems like Ubuntu as well?
      - drill_sarge 13y ago
        Yes. To clarify: dist-upgrade upgrades everything, including installing or removing new dependencies. Upgrade upgrades the installed packages, but doesn't add or remove new packages. In theory only using "upgrade" is supposed to be safer (eg more unlikely to break something) but I have not encountered any problems when using dist-upgrade (disclaimer: when you rely on the standard distro repositories; if you use unstable programs/repos or 3rd party repos/PPAs in Ubuntu, it is more likely that dist-upgrade breaks something). But I do not agree with what ksdkkdddd said. There is not really a use to do upgrade and then dist-upgrade right after it, because upgrade doesn't magically fix something in case dist-upgrade breaks something. It works or it does not. Also if you use apt from the terminal (as you should) and not rely on graphical updaters you always get output on what may prevent upgrading and how to resolve it.
        ksdkkdddd 13y ago
        In my experience a package's ability to cope with a complex uninstall scenario generally improves with the initial upgrade - or any upgrade for that matter - (for example, sometimes dist-upgrade-specific issues are only discovered by the maintainer as part of the coordination for a release) and so (in my experience) the reliability of the "dist-upgrade" is usually increased by doing an "upgrade" first. Dist-upgrade is one of those things that "should work" of it's own accord, but there are ways of increasing the odds; I have found a pre-"dist-upgrade" upgrade is one. (Sometimes I'm impatient and only upgrade apt/aptitude before a dist-upgrade though.) I would say it makes more of a difference on systems that are infrequently upgraded in general since a few points away from the current versions aren't going to contain many differences anyways, but I'd certainly be more hesitant to dist-upgrade from a .0 release (6.0 to 7.x, for example). I'd almost rather clean-install in that scenario since it amounts to a similarly-sized download.
    - asuffield 13y ago
juliocc 13y ago
Just doing apt-get update && apt-get upgrade && apt-get dist-upgrade should be enough. You have to be careful, do backups and all that, but that's basically all you need to do.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
null_ptr 13y ago
apt-get update && apt-get upgrade There's nothing special about upgrading Debian between point releases.
- rhizome 13y ago
  There's nothing special...except for the actual commands. Empathize with the newbie.
  - null_ptr 13y ago
    You're right. What I meant was that doing your regular system updates is enough to upgrade from 7.1 to 7.3, there's nothing special you need to do on top of that.
  - ars 13y ago
    You are supposed to run those commands every day, not just with a point release. When the newbie installed debian in the first place they were (should have been) told to do that. (And yes there is a tool that will do it automatically and email you if there are updates - apticron.)
    - chris_wot 13y ago
      Isn't it: apt-get dist-upgrade ???
      - scurry 13y ago
        Not between point releases.
      - perlgeek 13y ago
        The difference between 'dist-upgrade' and 'upgrade' is that 'dist-upgrade' will install new dependencies (additional methods) if necessary, while 'upgrade' holds back new versions of packages that add new dependencies. Between point releases, there really shouldn't be new dependencies. Maybe if some library is found to be totally broken from a security point of view it is replaced by another, but that happens very rarely. So usually, the two commands do exactly the same thing for point release upgrades.
jlgaddis 13y ago
As others have mentioned: $ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade In this particular case, from 7.1 to 7.3, "dist-upgrade" is not needed (you aren't upgrading from one distribution to another (e.g. from 6 to 7)).
- guipsp 13y ago
  Well, sometimes you need to dist-upgrade, even when not switching distros.
  - RexRollman 13y ago
    How would you know when?
    - prg318 13y ago
      Some packages will be held back by apt-get until you "dist-upgrade" them and apt-get will notify you of the held back packages when you apt get "upgrade".
    - ars 13y ago
      If you get a lot of packages that it tries to uninstall. That's basically what dist-upgrade does: tries to uninstall the least number of packages to allow the update through. It never happens with a point release though - they are careful about that.
- thesigil 13y ago
  dist-upgrade does not mean distribution upgrade, it just handles additional dependencies after an upgrade and it may remove some packages if necessary.
- gernotk 13y ago
  This is not Ubuntu. Better use 'aptitude': sudo aptitude update && aptitude full-upgrade
  - 13y ago
andrewaylett 13y ago
If you're already on a 7.x install (codename 'wheezy') then per http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20131214 http://www.debian.org/News/2013/20131214 it suffices to enable the updates repository (which I believe is the default) and run `apt-get upgrade`. The release notes you linked to are for the original 7.0 release. I think that most people will pretty much ignore that there's a point release and continue to update their systems regularly -- unless you're installing a large number of systems or have particular requirements there seems little point in paying it specific attention.
- rhizome 13y ago
  The release notes you linked to are for the original 7.0 release. The notes I linked are the ones linked from the post page on where the upgrade instructions can be found.
2jgi7 13y ago
You don't actually have to do anything if you are already on Wheezy. Just update normally.

swetland 13y ago

Thanks. I was puzzled that there seemed to be no 7.2 to 7.3 release notes or change lists linked from the original URL... just stuff about 7.0.