running lsb_release -a tells me I'm running jessie 8.0. I would like to upgrade to 8.8. After running aptitude update and then aptitude full-upgrade, it tells me that 0b will be installed.

full-upgrade is probably invalid, try apt-get upgrade

this is what i get when i run apt-get upgrade:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

There's a certain magic for the sources.list. Which is probably better advertised in #debian on irc.freenode.org. But it looks something like this:

FILE: /etc/apt/sources.list
Where by default without customization it probably looks like this:

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He was using aptitude full-upgrade, which certainly is not invalid. It is same as apt-get dist-upgrade. Anyway, if OP ran regular updates and upgrades, he should be on 8.8 now. What do you get from this:

perhaps?

post output from 'apt-cache policy' and 'aptitude update'

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

or

$ sudo dselect update
$ sudo dselect install

or

$ sudo aptitude update
$ sudo aptitude install

Various roads to take. With sudo, or as root. Some methods older, some newer.

$ lsb_release -a

$ cat /etc/issue
(MOTD for telnet or some such, doesn't really update/upgrade with releases.)

YMMV

Agree with Shadow_7's post #4, i've had similar for a couple years and used
weekly to stay up to date.

The only difference being http://ftp.debian... which is probably obsolete.

Just for info, the apt-get command currently can use full-upgrade as an alias for dist-upgrade.

Just a usage note for all those who might wonder what the difference is between apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade.

Ignore the names. The only difference is that dist-upgrade handles changing dependencies of new versions of packages using a conflict resolution system (it attempts to upgrade the more important packages at the expense of less important ones if necessary). It may remove some packages as a result.

So, you're always safer with apt-get upgrade (after an apt-get update of course so that the latest repository information is downloaded). You should only use dist-upgrade as a possible means of resolving dependency conflicts if they arise.

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Or, install new packages, which is what you get more often when you use it, specially on debian testing/ubuntu/mint where change of packages are more often. And that part with you are always safer with apt-get upgrade is not entirely true. Because some of those updates require new packages for security reasons and new kernels also require apt-get dist-upgrade.

True. I have never seen this on Mint, however, except during version number changes where it can be done in a more organised and controlled manner through Mint's update manager.

Fair enough. Replace "always" with "usually".

Once more, fair enough (although I have never seen the former).

Thanks, dejank, for providing some useful nuance to my black and white post.