why does apt-get hold some packages back?

[Gaccm]

i do my normal apt-get update; apt-get upgrade, but some times it doesn't upgrade some packages. It says "this packages not upgrading" ... i can manually do it with apt-get install X, but i was wondering why it did that at all.

[MADHATter7]

An apt-get upgrade will hold back packages for a number of reasons. Perhaps you will need extra packages to be installed that may conflict with something already on your system. Or maybe some packages will have to be removed in order to upgrade those packages.

The thinking is that it will provide a smoother transition through the upgrade phase by trying to greatly reduce the possibility of dependency problems.

I STRONGLY recommend using apt-get update over apt-get dist-upgrade. It works much better *most* of the time.

[This message has been edited by MADHATter7 (edited 12 January 2001).]