Re: ubuntu 12.04 LTS how to avoid GRUB update‏

[Spyros Tsiolis]

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On Thu, 14/1/16, Ralf Mardorf <silver.bullet at zoho.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: ubuntu 12.04 LTS how to avoid GRUB update‏
 To: ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
 Date: Thursday, 14 January, 2016, 12:37
 
 On Thu, 14 Jan 2016
 08:11:12 +0000 (UTC), Spyros Tsiolis wrote:
 >Correct me if I am wrong but AFAIK,
 "upgrade" means 
 >upgrading to
 a more recent Ubuntu OS version
 >while
 "update" means updating packages for the 
 >running / existing version. 
 
 No, you are mistaken.
 
 "update
         update is used to resynchronize the
 package index files from
         their
 sources." [1]
 
 IOW
 it's a refresh of the data base of the available
 packages. It does
 not update packages, it
 only syncs/updates the index/data base.
 
 "upgrade
        
 upgrade is used to install the newest versions of all
         packages" [1]
 
 This installs upgraded
 versions of packages, but before doing this you
 need to "update",otherwise the
 package management (apt) wouldn't know
 that there are new packages.
 
 "dist-upgrade
         dist-upgrade in addition to
 performing the function of
        
 upgrade, also intelligently handles changing dependencies
 with
         new versions of packages;
 apt-get has a "smart" conflict
  
       resolution system, and it will attempt to upgrade
 the most
         important packages at
 the expense of less important ones if
    
     necessary. So, dist-upgrade command may remove some
         packages." [1]
 
 It's the same as upgrade,
 but also manages packages as described. It's
 not clear to me how recommended packages are
 handled by both kinds of
 upgrade. However, a
 dist-upgrade might be not needed, but might be
 useful, especially when using third party
 repositories. Theoretically
 dist-upgrade is
 useful for release updates, but usually it's not used
 for release upgrades, do-release-upgrade seems
 to be the recommended
 way [2]. I never
 upgraded from one to another release, so I would have
 to read several sources myself, IOW the
 correctness of [2] might be ok,
 or not
 ok.
 --------------------------------------------


Hi Ralph,

Thank you for clarifying this.

s.