Am 2017-05-15 06:36, schrieb Steve Litt:
> Perhaps not in De**an, but in other distros, I've seen things go to
> hell in a handbasket when trying to upgrade to the next major version.

I think here is a little bit confusion about what a "dist-upgrade" is
and does.
It *can* be used for upgrade to a new major release, but in this case I
also would prefer a clean new install. But with De**an stable this is
only necessary every 2 years, not every 6 months as you stated.
A normal "upgrade" does not update packages with changed dependencies.
It does not install new packages automatically. If an upgrade needs to
install new packages because of changed dependencies, you have to use
dist-upgrade, or rest with outdated packages. I never heard of a broken
system when doing a dist-upgrade in the same stable release. "upgrade"
is good for doing unattended upgrades, whereas "dist-upgrade" lets you
view the changes and decide if you want install the new packages or keep
the old package version.
A good example is the latest change from icedove to thunderbird. There
is a valid reason to keep icedove, because thunderbird has some side
effects on enigmail and iceowl, both are made for icedove. When
upgrading to thunderbird, you have to remove enigmail and iceowl and
install them from Mozillas addon repositories. Mozillas enigmail addon
needs gnupg2 to be installed. So it's good to keep icedove until you are
not in hurry and can make the necessary changes for thunderbird.

Jochen