partial upgrade?

[emarkay]

People who do partial updates don't read stickies™

Not to be smarmy, bit there is no sticky addressing THIS issue (Partial Upgrades) - being that updating/upgrading is a near daily check for most people and is done via the GUI for most, I think this issue needs a separate "sticky".

I also "vote" for some statement like "Partial upgrades may, or may not, crash your system permanently, so you should not to this unless you like Russial Roulette." or something like that.

What's the point of something that suddenly MAY be destructive being cloaked as something called "Partial Upgrade", that users have used for years harmlessly - where's the logic to that???

[emarkay]

Also see here:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1282095

[23meg]

Not to be smarmy, bit there is no sticky addressing THIS issue (Partial Upgrades) - being that updating/upgrading is a near daily check for most people and is done via the GUI for most, I think this issue needs a separate "sticky".

It's mentioned in the sticky thread regarding the beta release:

Once you've started testing, do not upgrade your installation blindly - especially, avoid partial upgrades offered by Update Manager unless you know precisely why it's offering a partial upgrade. Regardless of which tool (APT, Update Manager, Synaptic, Aptitude) you're using to upgrade your packages, always check the list of packages to be removed, upgraded and installed before each upgrade. If in doubt, check the changelogs ("Package > Download Changelog" in Synaptic, or "aptitude changelog package_name", or at packages.ubuntu.com) to see why a package may be being removed.

It's also stressed in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuDevelo...opmentReleases, which is linked to in that thread.

[xebian]

You have to admire sometimes the collective wisdom of whoever came up with this nonsense. There is no such thing as partial upgrade. It's either go or no-go. Why it's still an option is even more perflexing. It doesn't buy you anything.

BTW, your pizza is ready for the oven. Would you want a slice while waiting?

[aamukahvi]

Just open synaptic, click "mark all upgrades" this will then list what is to be removed/installed/upgraded. I really believe this feature should be implemented into the update manager itself.

It is implemented.

If you get the partial upgrade popup and click OK, you can still review the actions (removals, upgrades, new installs) before committing.

[Keyper7]

I was getting a partial upgrade message yesterday, but "apt-get dist-upgrade" was showing no issues, and it updated fine. I'm not sure what the problem was.

It was probably the replacement of libgd2-noxpm by libgd2-xpm.

In this case, the partial upgrade was supposed to be done.

[psyke83]

It was probably the replacement of libgd2-noxpm by libgd2-xpm.

In this case, the partial upgrade was supposed to be done.

Right. The real problem is that some people are doing partial upgrades all the time. Sometimes they are lucky (and therefore spread the misinformation that such upgrades are safe), and other times they are not.

Now that we are entering the beta phase, you can expect dozens of threads from users expressing difficulty, all due to unsafe partial upgrades.

Looking at the last three (!) pages of the Karmic subforum, I can see the following threads that would not need to exist if the users understood partial upgrades:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1281366
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1281900
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1281920
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1282331
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1281787

I'm sure that I even missed a few.

We need to use some tough love here. Any time a thread is created which asks about an issue related to partial upgrades, lock the thread and post a link to the sticky. Something needs to be done, because the forum will become far too cluttered.

[emarkay]

It's mentioned in the sticky thread regarding the beta release:

Um, that's what I said.... This is so important it needs a SEPARATE Sticky IMHO.

[oboedad55]

Um, that's what I said.... This is so important it needs a SEPARATE Sticky IMHO.

I agree. This thread has gotten a fair amount of eye rolling, yet it continues on. If the dangers of doing a partial upgrade were clear, and I did read the beta sticky, then there wouldn't be so many questions about it nor so many miscues from having executed such.

[23meg]

Um, that's what I said.... This is so important it needs a SEPARATE Sticky IMHO.

And this is what I said before you said what you said, albeit half seriously: people who tend to click the "Partial Upgrade" button and not study the changes proposed will tend not to read sticky threads, but create new threads asking for assistance. And I'm not making this up; I've been frequenting the testing discussion forums since Hoary, and moderating them since Gutsy, and that is my observation.

Still, I might be wrong; times may have changed and it's worth an experiment. I'll post a sticky thread explaining the "Partial Upgrade" phenomenon within a few hours and we'll see if it works ("works" meaning we get a drastically less amount of new threads asking for "Partial Upgrade" assistance).