Package: apt
Version: 12-1.1
Severity: wishlist

With the release of Wheezy, it has once again become apparent that some
users use terms such as 'stable' and 'testing' in their sources.list file,
rather than 'squeeze' and 'wheezy'. Which is fine in itself - as long as
they're careful during a new release.

During a release some users accidentally and unintentionally upgrade to
some hybrid mix between releases, breaking their system. Some because they
don't know there is a new release, others because they don't realise
they're using 'stable' instead of 'squeeze' or don't understand the
difference. There have been numerous users reporting problems on IRC in
#debian today due to this.

The Release file already contains Codename, the canonical name of the
release.

I propose a simple method of preventing such accidental upgrades... during
'apt-get update', the Codename on the source can be compared to a cached
copy of its last known value. If they do not match a warning message can be
displayed stating that the release has changed and asking them to confirm
they want to continue, or abort. After a successful update the last known
value would be updated.

Providing users actually read this message before choosing to continue this
should prevent moving to the release accidentally.

Reply via email to