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Is it safe to run this command on a brand new Debian server?

aptitude -y full-upgrade

The command is from http://www.linode.com/stackscripts/view/?StackScriptID=1

On a related note, how is aptitude update different from apt-get update?

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Of course it's safe; what's the risk? If the server's brand new, you have no data to lose, and no services to get complaints about.

From the aptitude manpage:

full-upgrade Upgrades installed packages to their most recent version, removing or installing packages as necessary. This command is less conservative than safe-upgrade and thus more likely to perform unwanted actions. However, it is capable of upgrading packages that safe-upgrade cannot upgrade.

           Note
           This command was originally named dist-upgrade for

historical reasons, and aptitude still recognizes dist-upgrade as a synonym for full-upgrade.

Generally speaking, it's fine. The difference between apt and aptitude the algorithm for dependency solvers. Eventually you can expect apt-get to be replaced underneath by aptitude, when it's improved to the point where it's better than apt-get in every case.

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Generally speaking, should I be using aptitude instead of apt-get? – Miko Mar 28 '10 at 3:28
Generally, it doesn't matter at all. Sometimes, when things go horribly wrong, aptitude can calculate a way out with fewer remove packages, but typically the distinction is irrelevant – jldugger Mar 28 '10 at 8:15
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From the DebianWiki on Aptitude: "Score-based and (usually) smarter dependency resolver than apt-get. aptitude is also non-fattening, naturally cleansing, and housebroken..." wiki.debian.org/Aptitude . The Debian FAQ is a little bit more serious and states: "Note that aptitude is the preferred program for package management from console both for package installations and package or system upgrades." debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkgtools.en.html – Chris Lercher Mar 28 '10 at 15:07
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