# Unattended-upgrades vs. DEBIAN\_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get upgrade vs. apt-get upgrade -y
**URL:** https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/unattended-upgrades-vs-debian-frontend-noninteractive-apt-get-upgrade-vs-apt-get-upgrade-y/602
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [January 6, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/unattended-upgrades-vs-debian-frontend-noninteractive-apt-get-upgrade-vs-apt-get-upgrade-y/602 "2020-01-06T19:23:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@dgj](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/dgj)
#### Post date: [January 6, 2020, 7:23pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/unattended-upgrades-vs-debian-frontend-noninteractive-apt-get-upgrade-vs-apt-get-upgrade-y/602/1 "2020-01-06T19:23:44Z")
Today I ran a manual upgrade via the command line, and despite using the DEBIAN\_FRONTEND=noninteractive environment variable I still received a couple of configuration prompts (e.g., matrix-synapse). I was a bit surprised and simply accepted the default responses, which led me to wonder the following:
- Why did I receive the configuration prompts despite the DEBIAN\_FRONTEND=noninteractive environment variable?
- In terms of the state of the system after an upgrade, what is the difference between upgrades with unattended-upgrades and upgrades with the DEBIAN\_FRONTEND=noninteractive environment variable?
- What is the difference between upgrades with the DEBIAN\_FRONTEND=noninteractive environment variable and simply accepting the default responses (e.g., ’ "Do you want to continue [y/N]?’ answered with N)?
- What is the -y option (i.e., automatic ‘yes’ to prompts)? Does the -y tag mean always answer yes (e.g., ’ "Do you want to continue [y/N]?’ would be answered with y) or always answer with the default response (e.g., ’ "Do you want to continue [y/N]?’ would be answered with N)?
Just curious.
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### Author:  [@jvalleroy](https://discuss.freedombox.org/u/jvalleroy)
#### Post date: [January 7, 2020, 1:00pm UTC](https://discuss.freedombox.org/t/unattended-upgrades-vs-debian-frontend-noninteractive-apt-get-upgrade-vs-apt-get-upgrade-y/602/2 "2020-01-07T13:00:47Z")
- DEBIAN\_FRONTEND is an option for debconf. It doesn’t affect apt / dpkg overall.
- unattended-upgrades will not upgrade packages that have a conffile prompt. This is a good thing, because we often release new versions of FreedomBox to properly handle conffile prompts. FreedomBox will check for packages to be upgraded on a regular basis.
- Note that sometimes selecting “N” will not work. The old configuration may not be compatible with the new package.
- I’m not sure about this one.