Ubuntu's do-release-upgrade command upgrades the operating system to the latest release. What is Debian's way or tool for the same purpose?
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This is the first case I've wanted to downvote an answer, not because is it incorrect, but because it (appears to) give accurate response to a technology choice that is moronic. (N.B. I haven't downvoted either the OP or a response, as what they document does not appear to be their own fault.) – JonathanHayward Jan 9 at 22:38
Debian does not provide a single command to upgrade the OS to a new release. The Release Notes for each release include upgrade instructions for supported hardware architectures.
Find release notes for all Debian releases via the Debian Releases page.
For example, to upgrade a 64-bit PC from wheezy to jessie, follow the instructions in Chapter 4. Upgrades from Debian 7 (wheezy) in the Debian 8 -- Release Notes for 64-bit PC (amd64).
It's important to follow the release notes because the Debian release upgrade procedure can differ subtly or drastically from release to release. For example, the upgrade to woody (the now obsolete Debian 3) specified the dselect command instead of apt-get to upgrade packages. The Release Notes also contain information and tips about changes in the new release that save considerable time and effort.
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@sorontar Thanks for pointing out the ambiguity in the answer. I've edited this answer which I hope expresses my thoughts more clearly. – RobertL Oct 9 '16 at 18:11
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Officially, there's no tool - you're supposed to take care about it on your own: see https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/release-notes/ch-upgrading.html, for example.
Basically, it revolves around changing/adding URLs to repository for newer version and upgrading packages, sorting out any trouble that might come. You can see in the guide that it's not really convenient. This is why many distributions don't provide way to upgrade between releases, or strongly discourage it - there's a lot to care about (and also why it's often good to use LTS or rolling release distributions).
There might be an unofficial tool to automate the process in Debian, but I would rather follow the documentation in that respect.
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In my experience, upgrading Debian is pretty easy. I think I've made every Debian stable→stable upgrade since slink on at least one machine. – Gilles Jan 16 '16 at 22:19
