Maurits van Rees wrote: > On Wed, Jun 08, 2005 at 02:55:47AM -0700, Basajaun wrote: > > My impression (correct me if I'm wrong) is that whatever sources you > > put in "sources.list" have nothing to do with the version of Debian you > > are running. Those lines only tell apt-get where to look for the > > packages, but apt-get will ignore the ones not matching your version. > > Not true. It will download the list of updated packages from each > valid line. If you have one line with woody, one with sarge, one with > etch and one with sid then apt will download four package lists.
Yes, "apt-get update" will read every line, and update the package list. What I meant is that "apt-get upgrade" will ignore the packages from that list(s) that don't apply to your release. > > Actually, while writing this post, I have read "man apt_preferences", > > and I am still digesting it... anyway... > > Keep digesting. It is good stuff. ;-) [snip] > But all valid lines in your sources.list will lead to an update of an > available package list. What you really want to do is explicitly tell > apt which distribution you want to track. By default only packages for > that distro will get upgraded. See below. OK, we agree on that one. > > The second question is the use of "apt-get dist-upgrade". Say I am > > running Debian 3.1 Sarge (stable), and I want to upgrade to Debian 3.2 > > Etch (testing)... how does apt-get know it has to upgrade me to Etch, > > and not Sid? It always upgrades stepwise (stable -> testing -> etch)? > Look at the manual page of /etc/apt.conf: > > man apt.conf > > Actually I fail to see the info I am looking for there. Ah, it is in > the apt_preferences man page you mentioned. The point of interest here > is the Default-Release line. Put sarge or stable there. And if you > want to track the new testing distro put etch or testing there. I > think you can either handle it in the apt.conf or in the preferences > file. Here is my /etc/apt.conf (I have no preferences file > currently): [snip] > And on dist-upgrade: this is not meant just to upgrade to a new > distribution. I used to think that too. It is a more thorough (and > possibly more dangerous) method of upgrading. Say you have package-a > version 1 installed, with no dependencies. A new version 2 becomes > available, which has a new dependency on package-b, which you don't > yet have installed. An 'apt upgrade' will do nothing. An 'apt > dist-upgrade' will upgrade package-a from version 1 to version 2 and > will install package-b. So, my guess is that "apt-get dist-upgrade" is a kind of "do whatever you have to do to make what I have in 'Default-Release' (or wherever) be my current release". So dist-upgrade, by itself, is useless, unless you have changed something in your preferences, right? I was going to ask how to do the latter... but probably I would be kindly recommended to do some RTFM (so I'll get to it when I have time) :^) Thanks, Basajaun -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]