debian dependecy hell

[Fraser Campbell]

On August 3, 2004 05:30 pm, Tim Writer wrote:

> Using /etc/apt/preferences gives more flexibility.  You can, for example,
> prevent a particular package from being upgraded.  /etc/apt/preferences is
> documented in Chapters 5 and 6 of the Debian Reference Manual:

The way I force a package to never be upgraded is like this:

  echo php4 hold | dpkg --set-selections

Then when I want to allow upgrades to that package again, I do:

  echo php4 install | dpkg --set-selections

I've customized my php4 package to gain a few extensions, so I want to make 
sure that I'll never accidentally overwrite that with a package upgrade.  
When I try to do a dist-upgrade right now it will tell me:

  The following packages have been kept back:
    php4 php4-cgi php4-imap

Which is nice, I know now there's something new out there for my package 
(security updates in this case) and I can act accordingly.

This seems like a simpler way of preventing a particular package upgrade 
though having all your package selection policies set via preferences has the 
advantage of a single point of reference.

-- 
Fraser Campbell <fraser-Txk5XLRqZ6CsTnJN9+BGXg at public.gmane.org>                 http://www.wehave.net/
Georgetown, Ontario, Canada                               Debian GNU/Linux
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