[Durham] Holding packages from being updated

[Richard Mortimer]

This thread prompted me to do some research over the weekend because I 
occasionally use "aptitude hold" or "aptitude forbid-version". I'd 
always assumed that the apt/dpkg hold databases were the same as the one 
used by aptitude. But it seems that they are not.

So an "aptitude hold" will stop "aptitude upgrade" from doing an upgrade 
but will not stop "apt-get upgrade" from upgrading that package.

I guess that explains why the Ubuntu Software Updater keeps trying to 
suggest that I want to apply the packages that I've held/forbidden.

I myself haven't tried the apt-mark hold command Neil suggests below but 
I did try

echo "openswan hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections

and that stopped apt-get from trying to update the package.

Note. forbid-version is quite neat it allows you to prevent a 
particular, typically buggy, version of a package being installed but 
when a later version of that package is installed it will allow that and 
subsequent versions. Shame it only applies to aptitude and not to apt-get!

Richard

On 10/07/2014 12:15, Neil Shaw wrote:
> I have seen:
> sudo apt-mark hold <package>
>
> given as a way of preventing a package from being updated (see #17 on
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/openbve/+bug/1273393  ). Not
> tried it myself, but worth a shot.
>
>
> On 10 July 2014 11:54, Andrew Glass <andrewglass3 at gmail.com
> <mailto:andrewglass3 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hey guys
>
>     When I do apt-get upgrade on Debian it shows a rather large list of
>     files that need updating.  However openswan is one of them and after
>     seeking answers on github I was told there's a bug in the Debian
>     update of openswan that stops iOS users from connecting.
>
>     I would therefore like to upgrade all the packages listed
>     without upgrading openswan.  I believe 'aptitude hold openswan'
>     would work but if I run that then reload the 'apt-get upgrade'
>     command openswan shows up again.
>
>     Could anyone give me assistance with updating the system but
>     blocking certain packages from being installed during the apt-get
>     upgrade process??
>
>     Cheers
>
>     Andy
>
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