[Aptitude-devel] Bug#799987: Bug#799987: aptitude and dpkg disagree upon held packages

[Axel Beckert]

Control: forcemerge 137771 -1

Hi Harri,

Harald Dunkel wrote:
> If I use aptitude to hold a package on the Wheezy version
> (e.g. lftp), then it is upgraded to Jessie on the next run
> of the nightly unattended upgrades.

Yes, that's an over 10 years old issue fixed in the last aptitude
upload to unstable: https://bugs.debian.org/137771

Before 0.7.2-1, aptitude didn't synchronise hold states with dpkg at
all. The reason for this was on purpose, but controversial. That's why
it hasn't been fixed for a long time.

> dpkg --get-selections shows that the held package is still
> set to "install". aptitude disagrees on that. I have to use
> 
> 	echo "lftp hold" | dpkg --set-selections
> 
> to make holding a package work (hopefully).

Yes, that's correct.

> Is aptitude using a "wrong way" to hold packages?

Yes and no. It's the "right way", if you use aptitude only. It was the
wrong way (and still is in Wheezy and Jessie) if you also use other
APT frontends which rely on dpkg's hold states.

		Regards, Axel
-- 
 ,''`.  |  Axel Beckert <abe at debian.org>, http://people.debian.org/~abe/
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