Re: packages "kept back"

[Bob Nielsen <nielsen@oz.net>]

On Sun, Jun 17, 2001 at 12:11:28AM -0400, Daniel Jones wrote:
> Running unstable.
> 
> Executing "apt-get upgrade," I get:
> 
> The following packages have been kept back
>   ddd grace lib-xt-java libldap2 libxml-generator-perl
> python-numeric python-numeric-tutorial task-sgml task-tex
> wmaker 
> 0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 10
> not upgraded.
> 
> Why are those packages "kept back?"  Is it because upgrading
> them would break something else or what?  And is this normal
> or a sign of something misconfigured on my system?

There are several conditions which will give a "kept back" response:

  1.  Packages which have new dependencies in the latest version. 
'apt-get upgrade' will not install new packages, but 'apt-get
dist-upgrade' will, allowing the upgrade to proceed.

  2.  Packages which have dependencies which cannot be satisfied (often
these are versioned dependencies and the required version does not yet
show up in the Packages file.

 3.  Packages which have been put on hold (these you would probably
already be aware of).