I want a process to pause or something
 

When I do apt-get update and apt-get upgrade, both times I have to unplug my ethernet cord right after it's done downloading the stuff and right before it finishes saying "reading changelogs" and stuff because maybe a second or three after it finishes reading the changelogs my firewall will be lowered. If I unplug my ethernet cord in time I just reset the iptables and plug my ethernet cord back in. For really small upgrades it will finish downloading and reading changelogs too quick so I'm not sure if my firewall was lowered or not and I have to reinstall. I just want it to pause or wait for 5 seconds or something after the upgrades are downloaded. Is there any way for me to do this?

Do you unplug your cable every time you visit a secure site?

I guess I might know what you mean by that. I removed my wireless card because the wireless transmits before you can log in and set up the firewall and it totally compromises my computer. So I have a 100 foot ethernet cable up to my room.

Get encrypted wireless!

# apt-get -d dist-upgrade

Will download only. At which point you can envoke paranoia and disconnect from the network.

# apt-get dist-upgrade

Will do the updates with what's already downloaded, if everything is already downloaded. You don't necessarily have to pull the hardware. You could ifdown and modprobe -r the driver.

Can I ask what the difference is between apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade?

I Googled and found this for my answers and I don't really know what these mean.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/21526...-newer-version

http://askubuntu.com/questions/81585...e-than-upgrade

The thing is apt-get upgrade seems to have been keeping my computer secure just fine for 3 months now. Can you tell me how dist-upgrade might be necessary in simple terms?

Every time I've done apt-get upgrade I've done apt-get update first. Does dist-upgrade just do both of these or something?

They should be mostly the same. BITD the dist-upgrade was more distro-ish and might have done extra stuff, but they both upgrade the system. The update still needs to be done in either case to know what needs upgrading. The main thing is the -d option which is download only so it doesn't actually update until you don't use the -d option.