upgrade & utpdate

[errol]

I installed Karmic and am having no real problems. I'm not sure whether my rather newbie question is related only to Karmic or to any Kubuntu release. In order to get updates I type "sudo aptitude update" (no quotes of course) in the terminal and Karmic then updates ok. I read that I should also use the "sudo aptitude upgrade" command which I did. I then got a different set of files and updates installed (in fact a lot more). After this everything works fine but I am left with trying to understand what each command does. In my understanding of the English language, "update" means getting the newest version on installed programs and "upgrade" means changing existing programs to the latest one.
Could someone explain to me the differences of those two commands, please. Should I be using both?
Errol

[kubicle]

Re: upgrade & utpdate

For future reference, you can view a manual for commands with "man command" (man aptitude in this case), the manuals usually explain what commands do.

When you 'update', your system will fetch a list of available packages from the online repositories, it "updates" the list of packages that are available, it does not install any upgrades.

The actual installation can be done with "upgrade" or "dist-upgrade"...the difference between the two is that "upgrade" only upgrades packages that can be upgraded without installing new packages or removing other packages (which is sometimes necessary due to changed dependencies) and "dist-upgrade" will upgrade all packages (installing and removing other packages as necessary).

I usually recommend using dist-upgrade (as upgrade often skips some packages), but always check what would be removed if you use it, the command will list the changes and ask for confirmation.

[errol]

Re: upgrade & utpdate

Thanks Kubicle, that clarifies the issue for me.
Errol

[GreyGeek]

Re: upgrade & utpdate

How'd you guys get stuck on the grave yard shift?