> I have yet to receive messages from this list, so I'm not sure if I am > really on it or not. > > My question is, when using apt-get to update the system, does it > download all the files to local disk, then attempt to install them (not > enough space on most home systems like mine) or does it work with one > file at a time? >
apt-get dist-upgrade would try to download all the files needed for the update before installing them. If you do not have enough disk space but have enough time and connection speed you can: 1) apt-get update 2) apt-get -s dist-upgrade > /tmp/apt-get.plan 3) apt-get install 1st_package 2nd_package 3rd_package ... where the order of the packages are according to those of /tmp/apt-get.plan and the number of packages included in any iteration is bounded by the size of the packages in that iteration and the available disk space.
