update-manager show everything up to date, but there are upgradeable packages

[el_baby]

Hi,

I did a fresh installation of 14.04 and today I noticed that even when synaptic shows that there are a bunch of packages to upgrade, I run update-manager and, after checking sources it says that everything is up to date.

Is update-manager ignoring some packages?

Is this something new in 14.04?

Or something is wrong somewhere?

254959

[grahammechanical]

Is update-manager ignoring some packages?

Holding back is a more accurate term.


Is this something new in 14.04?

No.


Or something is wrong somewhere?

No.

Packages are put in the archive/repositories as and when they are ready. Often they depend on other packages that are not ready. So they are held back. If we used the apt- get commands of update and upgrade we may be shown a list of packages held back. Apt-get may even tell us of packages that have been downloaded and not installed.

There is a small risk that bringing in these held back packages could break something. This is why most users should use Update Manager.

Regards.

[el_baby]

Hi, grahammechanical,

thanx for your reply... this doesn't seem to be the case of held back packages because of unmet dependencies, since if I mark all upgrades in synaptic (which is careful with dependencies, as also is apt-get without the "--force" option) they actually get selected for upgrade (if there were unmet dependencies, synaptic would NOT mark the upgrades and would show a message accordingly... seen that a lot of times).

I just did not upgraded the packages within synaptic just out of curiosity.

[Dennis N]

The update manager (Software Updater) is providing "phased updates".

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/08/phased-updates-to-start-rolling-out-for-ubuntu-13-04

But apt-get or Synaptic will offer all updates - they don't use phased updates.

[Dennis N]

I meant to include this for those wanting to know more. A write up with all the details of how phased updates work:

http://lwn.net/Articles/563966/

[el_baby]

Excelent!!

Thanx for your replies, Dennis.