apt full-upgrade versus apt-get dist-upgrade

In accordance with man pages:

• apt has parameter full-upgrade
• apt-get has parameter dist-upgrade.

Are both the same command?

btw: which is officially the recommended command in Ubuntu 16.04? apt or apt-get?

Solution 1:

apt full-upgrade performs the same function as apt-get dist-upgrade.

man apt

full-upgrade (apt-get(8)) performs the function of upgrade but will remove currently installed packages if this is needed to upgrade the system as a whole.

man apt-get

dist-upgrade in addition to performing the function of upgrade, also intelligently handles changing dependencies with new versions of packages; apt-get has a "smart" conflict resolution system, and it will attempt to upgrade the most important packages at the expense of less important ones if necessary. The dist-upgrade command may therefore remove some packages. The /etc/apt/sources.list file contains a list of locations from which to retrieve desired package files. See also apt_preferences(5) for a mechanism for overriding the general settings for individual packages.

Solution 2:

Yes they are the same command. This part of apt's cmdline/apt.cc source file proves it:

static std::vector<aptDispatchWithHelp> GetCommands()            /*{{{*/
{
   return {
      // [snip]
    
      // system wide stuff
      {"update", &DoUpdate, _("update list of available packages")},
      {"upgrade", &DoUpgrade, _("upgrade the system by installing/upgrading packages")},
      {"full-upgrade", &DoDistUpgrade, _("upgrade the system by removing/installing/upgrading packages")},
    
      // misc
      {"edit-sources", &EditSources, _("edit the source information file")},
      {"moo", &DoMoo, nullptr},
    
      // for compat with muscle memory
      {"dist-upgrade", &DoDistUpgrade, nullptr},
    
      // [snip]
   };
}

And for completeness, cmdline/apt-get.cc:

static std::vector<aptDispatchWithHelp> GetCommands()           /*{{{*/
{
   return {
      // [snip]
      {"dist-upgrade", &DoDistUpgrade, _("Distribution upgrade, see apt-get(8)")},
      {"full-upgrade", &DoDistUpgrade, nullptr},
      // [snip]
   };
}

For both apt and apt-get, full-upgrade and dist-upgrade both refer to the same DoDistUpgrade function and therefore do the exact same thing.

I first posted this info to complement schod's answer in an edit, but it was rejected so I'm answering myself instead...

Solution 3:

Use apt as a first choice, but if you're scripting use apt-get. Apt-get has more stable output (meaning that the output format is left alone as much as possible so as not to break scripts which parse that output automatically). Apt-get also has some low-level commands not available in apt.

The manual pages for apt and apt-get describe full-upgrade and dist-upgrade a little differently, but they are probably the same command (apt accepts dist-upgrade as an alias of full-upgrade). This serves as a good example of apt-gets stability. In apt, the name was changed to be more user friendly, while in apt-get the name remains unchanged so as not to break compatibility with old scripts.

Solution 4:

apt and apt-get are two different commands. apt is the newer command and should be used as default. You should change to using apt over apt-get as apt is better.