[Aptitude-devel] Bug#825290: aptitude: (h)old packages should need to be specifically "unhold" to accept further actions on them

[Christoph Anton Mitterer]

Package: aptitude
Version: 0.8.1-1
Severity: wishlist
Tags: upstream


Hi.

Currently, when I mark a package as hold (= key in the UI) it will get the
hold status, which is however automatically overridden, when I e.g. do a
"+" for upgrade on the package or the whole collapsed tree element.

I think this makes the behaviour quite unfortunate as it easily happens
that the "hold" flag is automatically overridden, e.g. just by saying
"upgrade all".

It would be nice, if a hold package needs to be specifically "unhold" first
before other actions like upgrade/remove/purge/etc. would be accepted on
it.

To make thinks easier to work with:
- there could be UI and/or command line options that allow to
  - simply ignore this one time
  or
  - clear
  any hold flags on packages.
- The action overview could feature a special section which features all
  packages (either marked as hold or not), which are kept in the current
  state *because of* the hold flag on some packages.
  E.g. *other* (non-hold) packages which are not not auto-upgraded or not
  auto-removed or hold packages that are not upgraded/removed/etc. (even
  though the user tried to perform the action on them) because of the flag.


Cheers,
Chris.