do-release-upgrade or apt-get dist-upgrade to go from a 12.04.1 to 12.04.2?

Question

I used to make an

apt-get dist-upgrade

to upgrade my system from 12.04.X to 12.04.X+1, but now I have doubts if

do-release-upgrade

is better or even if that command classified as an option to such minor upgrades. In the do-release-upgrade man page one can read

Upgrade the operating system to the latest release

but is not clear to me if that mean latest minor version or latest major version, because latest major version could be seem even like another OS and not a version of the same OS.

Solution

Point releases are not new releases, from the prospective of APT. Therefore, do-release-upgrade would do the wrong thing and upgrade to 12.10.

In fact, do-release-upgrade checks changelogs.ubuntu.com/meta-release which contains just 12.04.2, while there are no traces of 12.04 and 12.04.1. Also, 12.04.2 uses the same archive and upgrade tools of 12.04.1 and 12.04.

Point releases are just used to plan development:

Compatible with New Hardware: We will make point releases throughout the development cycle to provide functional support for new server and desktop hardware.