update-manager should make sure that it is uptodate before a dist-upgrade even if edgy-updates is not available

[Kai Schroeder]

Binary package hint: update-manager

I wanted to update from edgy to feisty on a machine that has only ubuntu-security enabled (because its normal internet connection is dial-up and I want as few updates as possible). The upgrade failed - now i saw that the bug has already been fixed (Bug 78673) in a current relase of the update-manager - but it is only available in edgy-updates. therefore i propose that the update-manager should always check that it is uptodate before a dist-upgrade. A possible solution would be to include updates of update-manager in the base distro or ubuntu-security.

[Martin Mai (mrkanister-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

 Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Kai Schroeder (kai-schroeder)]

I have no idea how I can test that. So you have to ask Michael Vogt or another developer of update-manager if this is still an issue. A wild guess from me would be this has not been addressed, yet.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

I'm surprised to see mvo set this to confirmed. Is it a reasonable expectation to have the latest package when all repositories but -security have been disabled? My feeling is that "no, that is not a reasonable expectation".

[Kai Schroeder (kai-schroeder)]

In my opinion it is a valid use-case to only want the minimum amount of package changes by only enabling -security. I also think it is a reasonable expectation that upgrades should not fail when it is possible to achieve that.
A possible solution (just in case this hasn't been addressed anyway already, I don't know) could be to automatically enable -updates before distribution upgrades when package changes are made anyway.

[Martijn_Hoekstra (martijnhoekstra)]

does this produce a 'broken' upgrade, or does it fail to update completely? IMO the second should be the desired behaviour. Maybe rev 2661 - 2664 of branch ~daniel-thewatkins/bzr/fix-for-111914 can 'fix' this?

[Kai Schroeder (kai-schroeder)]

this means, during upgrade, the version of update-manager is the one from the last release. changes to update-manager which are necessary for the next upgrade may only have been developed later on - bugs may have been fixed. what this means for the upgrade process can vary. (although, personally, i am not interested in this fix anymore)