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Tonight I ran sudo apt upgrade and seven packages were upgrade. One of them was Google Chrome 53 x.y?

Anyway flash player now gets pause pizza followed by 1/4 second black flash after the rotating pizza has finished it's 2 to 3 second spinning. I also did a failed Nvidia 367.44 driver install and am not sure which event is causing it but I'd like to reverse the Google Chrome 53.x.y upgrade Ubuntu/Debian just installed.

  • How do I find out what Chrome version was running before the upgrade? (ie does Ubuntu keep track of versions that were just upgraded somewhere?)
  • How do I reinstall that Chrome version the sanctioned/safe way?
  • How do I freeze that Chrome version so it doesn't get updated again automatically? (Some day I will after finding out what is going on)

I know enough to be dangerous and can probably stumble my way through this but I've been reading about broken packages lately and would like to know the safe path back from where I've come.

The other six packages upgraded tonight I would like to keep as I try to stay current. Note that sudo apt update was run before sudo apt upgrade.

WinEunuuchs2Unix
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1 Answers1

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As you want to reverse only one package there might be some possibilities. But be aware they are all more or less related to luck and not so much a standard procedure.

The package database has no entries about packages that used to live on your computer. It can only tell you what your current version is and if there is a newer available. You might be able to derrive some intel from the apt log files in /var/log/apt, but don't expect them to give it to you on a silver platter. You will need to figure out what you did when and deduct what the situation might have been before you upgraded.

Whenever you deal with a package repository, it has not histiory of the files that used to be in this repo - it only knows about one, and that is the most recent one. The moment you can upgrade from package-0.1.deb to package-0.2.deb, version 0.1 of that package is already deleted in the repository you are pointing to.

That said: mirror scripts written and configured by humans and they might fail. So perhaps you find a mirror that still has old files. Or you find it somewhere else on the internet - you will need to find the deb package with your version somewhere.

You might be super lucky - or lazy like me and use apt-get clean seldom :) - and find your package in /var/cache/apt/archives/. That happens you can just remove your current version and reinstall from the package using dpkg.

Again, there is no sanctioned way as you usually dont the the package anyway.

To freeze a specific version, you can use pinning. That in short enables you to tell the package manager to use a specific version and only that specific version of a package and never touch.

FredFoo
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