Below is a mail I sent to Larry & Tom from the Going Linux Podcast. It’s some feedback after listening to an episode whilst stuck in a traffic jam on the way to record an episode of Ubuntu UK Podcast. They were kind enough to read out my mail in full, and were very good willed about it, despite it being almost completely negative :S . I’m publishing it here in case anyone else is interested.
Note: I’ve massively simplified what apt-get does, and yes, I have used apt-get in my example and not aptitude or synaptic. This was most appropriate given the episode this is feeedback to.
Hi Larry & Tom,
I’m an Ubuntu user and fellow podcaster on the Ubuntu UK Podcast..
(I realise that this mail may come over as negative, and I don’t mean it to. I want you guys to carry on doing what you’re doing but appreciate that beginners will listen to your advice and act on it. If you don’t read it out that’s fine, I don’t mind, but I’d appreciate it if you’d take on board the content in the manner in which it was intended, some friendly advice 
I listened to episode 86 of Going Linux Podcast in the car and wanted to give you some feedback about an answer that you gave to a caller – Greg – about updating and upgrading an Ubuntu server installation onto which the caller had added XFCE.
Firstly I think you gave some incorrect advice about the apt-get parameters, the upgrade process and installing packages. You suggested to the caller that ‘apt-get dist-upgrade’ will upgrade from one release to another – for example from 9.04 to 9.10. This is not correct.
To clarify:-
“sudo apt-get update” – this command is equivalent to the ‘check’ button in Update Manager. It just refreshes the local list of packages from online repositories. No packages get upgraded.
“sudo apt-get upgrade” – this will upgrade packages where a new version is available in the repository. However it will not install any new dependancies which may be required by those upgraded packages.
“sudo apt-get dist-upgrade” – this is exactly the same as ‘upgrade’ only it _does_ add new packages that will be required by the upgrade of the packages. Note: This does _not_ upgrade from one release to another on its own.
However before Update Manager existed, many people would manually edit their ‘sources.list’ and then “sudo apt-get update” then “sudo apt-get dist-upgrade”. Some people still do this, but we generally don’t recommend that people do that, although it is “allowed” and “supported”.
If the caller wishes to upgrade from one release to another, the command to use on the server is:-
“sudo do-release-upgrade”
On a desktop, users can use that command in a terminal, or more usually use the graphical ‘Update Manager’.
The reason why we recommend using do-release-upgrade or Update Manager is because they have additional functionality over using apt-get or aptitude. This extra functionality is used to work around certain ‘quirks’ that occur when you go from one release to another.
I’d recommend taking a look at this page on the Ubuntu wiki, which is the official documentation for upgrading Ubuntu systems:-
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes
The second thing I wanted to highlight was the problem with installing packages from random 3rd party websites. You may have heard of the recent malware that was added to a deb package hosted on the popular theme site Gnome Look
(http://linux.slashdot.org/story/09/12/09/2215253/Malware-Found-Hidden-In-Screensaver-On-Gnome-Look) which highlights the issue with installing random debs from 3rd party
websites.
The third thing is related to both of the above. Your general advice during the show was “don’t upgrade, reinstall” when looking at upgrades. If people do install packages from sites which host debs which are not part of the repository, and then attempt to upgrade their system to another release there is a real genuine chance that
the upgrade will fail. The reason for that is quite simple, the QA team don’t test every possible combination of debs on an Ubuntu system. Sure, members of the Ubuntu community test out various combinations, but not everything is, and when the upgrade fails, plenty of people blame Ubuntu developers of the upgrade tools.
The key takeaway from this is.. Imagine a world where everyone does clean installs, where nobody ever upgrades because they have no faith that it will work, because people keep telling them it wont. We’ll never get any testing done of the upgrade process if nobody ever upgrades. This becomes a self perpetuating spiral of fail resulting in
less and less feedback to developers when upgrades go wrong.
So, I’d strongly encourage you to educate your listeners about the support network available for Ubuntu. That’s not just the forums, but irc channels and mailing lists. The _vast_ majority of upgrade problems _can_ be fixed, but it takes a little time and patience.
If you ever want a guest on to talk about this kind of stuff, I’d be delighted to dial in over skype or whatever and talk it over
All the best, keep up the great work on the show!
Alan Pope
4 Comments
Thanks for sending us the feedback, Popey. Thanks, too, for publishing it here for all to share. As we said on the podcast, you have made some very important points that everyone should consider.
Larry
· Going Linux Podcast ·
‘If you ever want a guest on to talk about this kind of stuff, I’d be delighted to dial in over skype or whatever and talk it over’
SKYPE, SKYPE…..SKYPE!!! I am appalled that you mentioned using Skpye as I believed you were against it on principle that it was not open source.
Something, something..dog food
Haha.
Should I request that my Ubuntu membership be rescinded and switch to using OSX full time do you think?
Don’t do that, Popey!
I’m a firm believer that extremism (including Free software fanaticism) should be tempered with the practical realism provided by common sense. Skype may not be Open Source or Free but it is good, functional, easy to use communication software.
Maybe it’s just me, but freedom of choice is the “fifth freedom” that, in some ways, appears to be ignored by the FSF and its fanatical followers.
Larry.
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