6.4.6 Holding older packages

For example, holding of libc6 and libc6-dev for dselect and aptitude install package can be done as follows:

     # echo -e "libc6 hold\nlibc6-dev hold" | dpkg --set-selections

aptitude install package will not be hindered by this "hold". To hold a package through forcing automatic downgrade for aptitude upgrade package or aptitude dist-upgrade, add the following to /etc/apt/preferences:

     Package: libc6
     Pin: release a=stable
     Pin-Priority: 2000

Here the "Package:" entry cannot use entries such as "libc6*". If you need to keep all binary packages related to the glibc source package in a synchronized version, you need to list them explicitly.

The following will list packages on hold:

     dpkg --get-selections "*"|grep -e "hold$"