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I'm not new to linux but i'm new to debian and my following question is how often should i run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade or should i run apt-get dist-upgrade instead of apt-get upgrade
if anyone can help me sort this out because i can't seem to figure it out and the problem is. I don't want to overhead my system because it's only a PII 600 MHz celeron running a mail and web server.
If anybody has tips or cant point me in direction of securing or improving the server your free to help me
You should use apt-get dist-upgrade only when upgrading to another version of Debian, eg. from Woody to Sarge or from Sarge to Etch.
How often you should run apt-get update && apt-get upgrade depends on what version of Debian you use and your personal preference. When running stable (Sarge) weekly should be enough because the only updates you get are security updates which don't come so often. When running testing (Etch) I recommend to run it on a daily base or once in two days because the packages list of testing updates pretty often.
I recommend to use stable on servers though, it's more reliable and the configuration doesn't change.
Originally posted by Lokathor You can see the release dates for past versions there. Based on that, a new Stable release isn't likely to come out for a while.
Personally I would always run dist-upgrade instead of plain upgrade. It won't actually bump you to another version unless you've changed your /etc/apt/sources.list file.
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