How to prevent updating of a specific package?

Question

Because of bug #693758 I'd like to prevent apt-get upgrade and Update Manager from updating the "libgtk2.0-0" package.

How can this be achieved?

Answer 1

Holding

There are different ways of holding back packages: with dpkg, apt, dselect, aptitude or Synaptic.

dpkg

Put a package on hold:

echo "<package-name> hold" | sudo dpkg --set-selections

Remove the hold:

echo "<package-name> install" | sudo dpkg --set-selections

Display the status of all your packages:

dpkg --get-selections

Display the status of a single package:

dpkg --get-selections <package-name>

Show all packages on hold:

dpkg --get-selections | grep "\<hold$"

apt

Hold a package:

sudo apt-mark hold <package-name>

Remove the hold:

sudo apt-mark unhold <package-name>

Show all packages on hold:

sudo apt-mark showhold

dselect

With dselect, enter the [S]elect screen, find the package you wish to hold in its present state and press = or H. The changes will take effect immediately after exiting the [S]elect screen.

---

The following approaches are limited in that locking/holding a package within aptitude or synaptic doesn't affect apt-get/apt.

aptitude

Hold a package:

sudo aptitude hold <package-name>

Remove the hold:

sudo aptitude unhold <package-name>

Locking with Synaptic Package Manager

Go to Synaptic Package Manager (System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager).

Click the search button and type the package name.

When you find the package, select it and go to the Package menu and select Lock Version.

That package will now not show in the update manager and will not be updated.

Answer 2

I was looking for the same thing and after a lot of research I found that using the following syntax you can forbid one specific version but allow the next update:

Package: compiz-plugins-main
Pin: version 1:0.9.7.0~bzr19-0ubuntu10.1
Pin-Priority: -1

This goes into the /etc/apt/preferences file.

Answer 3

To put a package "foo" on hold:

echo "foo hold" | dpkg --set-selections

In your case we are going to put wine on hold:

sudo -i
echo "wine hold" | dpkg --set-selections

To remove the hold:

sudo -i
echo "wine install" | dpkg --set-selections

Answer 4

Install synaptic using sudo apt-get install synaptic.

Run using gksudo synaptic and on the search box locate the package you want to lock, ie: gedit

From the package menu select Lock version:

And that is all, the version currently installed at the time of the lock will stay installed even during upgrades.

Answer 5

Preventing a package from being installed is called "package holding" and it is very simple to do:

echo package_name hold | dpkg --set-selections

...where *package_name* is the name of the package you want to prevent from installation.

Note: the above command assumes root privileges. In other words, you will probably need to type sudo su before running it.

Answer 6

Since some time apt-get is replaced by apt, so for example I want to prevent Firefox from updating to version above 56, because a lot of add-ons, like "Tab Groups" don't work any more with the new Firefox 57 (see "WebExtensions Update").

It is possible to hold more than one packages with one command and use wildcards.

Prevent Firefox from updating

sudo apt-mark hold firefox firefox-locale-*

If you should deside to unhold them later, that would be the command:

sudo apt-mark unhold firefox firefox-locale-*

Answer 7

Everything you ever wanted to know about "holding" and "pinning" packages to specific versions: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PinningHowto

Answer 8

Adding details to @soger's comments relative to Ubuntu 16.04.

Ubuntu 16.04 does not have an existing /etc/apt/preferences file by default. If you don't have one currently, just create a new file and populate it with a stanza as @soger describes above to exclude the given package and its dependencies from updates.

Afterwards, run apt update and you're GTG. :0)

For example, I have an Ubuntu 16.04.5 LTS server with embedded Intel video card and an NVidia card. The NVidia card is the only one used. The server also uses CUDA drivers. I had a problem where apt kept insisting

va-driver-all

(Intel drivers) required an update, but it could not determine which version to install. This was driving me nuts, and I didn't need the Intel drivers anyway. I entered this text into the preferences file and flushed apt, problem solved.

Package: va-driver-all
Pin: release *
Pin-Priority: -1

Answer 9

I synaptic you can freeze the version of a specific package I'm not a 100% sure as to whether this will amend apt-get but it will definately stop update manager.

To freeze a package select it in synaptic then open the package menu and select freeze version.

Hope this helps

edit: This question 16668 deals with a similar situation

Answer 10

Just because it was not mentioned here, the KDE tool Muon has an option similar to Synaptic's:

Answer 11

See bugs #75332, #158981 and #72806.

The summary is that hold at apt-get / aptitude level is not triggering hold status in dpkg (see bug 72806 especially) and update-manager reads status from dpkg.

workaround is run as root: echo "package hold" | dpkg --set-selections

Answer 12

You can use on aptitude the "specific override", like this:

aptitude reinstall ~i oracle-java8-jre:

This is a one time only use of (not stored for future reinstalls), keep specific override, to reinstall all packages in your system but not oracle-java8-jre.

If you use a keep specific override, the package will momentarily be in a state of keep and aptitude will not try to install it.

A very good thing if you think your system was compromised some how as you can reinstall everything in just one punch card.

Answer 13

To keep a package at the currently-installed version and prevent it from being automatically upgraded, you can add an APT preference fragment to /etc/apt/preferences.d like this:

Package: vim
Pin: release a=now
Pin-Priority: 1001

Answer 14

If you have Synaptic installed you can select the package and use the menu Package -> Lock Version to prevent it being updated.

You can install Synaptic with sudo apt-get install synaptic. I personally find it more useful than the Software Center... then again, I'm fairly old school. :)

Answer 15

Occasionally one might want to hold back all the packages currently installed. Here's how.

First save the current state, so you can undo:

dpkg --get-selections > current_selections.txt

Then, to hold back all the packages:

dpkg --get-selections | sed -r "s/\tinstall/hold/" |dpkg --set-selections

Finally, when you want to revert back to the previous state:

dpkg --set-selections < current_selections.txt

One use case for this might be when creating a VM or Amazon AMI snapshot to migrate from a QA to production environment.