This snip was originally created to document the arse-ache I had building my second Pi; it documented problems with Jesse & Stretch. The current release is buster and so much of this content is deprecated. In April 2020, I had reason to explore the code I use to maintain the currency of the apt cache. I have moved deprecated content to the comments and updated this post. For more, see below/overleaf. … 
At the end of the original page, I documented the use of a script to run the upgrade/updates but this is not a recommended process. I have amended it to only run the update and will need to further amend it, to post reminders to run the upgrade. (I am using notify-send on Ubuntu derivatives, and having some difficulty with this on Raspbian.)

1st Problem

I had big problems with APT, (the advanced packaging tool) updating Jessie to Jessie last, and then taking it onto Stretch on my Raspberry Pi. I must have needed to download and update over 2000 packages.  Some of this is documented in Raspberry PI Part Deux but I have created this snip to make it easier for others to find in order to help those that follow me. I found that an apt transaction would either hang, or cause the machine to reboot. I have not found a compelling solution but I have now completed the exercise. Here are my old notes.

oooOOoo

I used the apt tools either apt or apt-get. I used the CLI. I eventually uninstalled wolfram-engine because it was so big; its size jeopardised the downloads because I have a small SD card. (You might like to uninstall libreoffice as it’s so large and pretty unused on a Pi, at least by me.) Stretch is quite big.
I should document the hardware version, Raspberry Pi 3 Model B Rev 1.2
Complete pain in the bum, it’d be useful to know why it fails in this way, so if you know add a comment.
I wrote a script in the hope it might be volume based, and needed to be reminded of apt-get’s interactive & batch switches.
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