Re: Comparison of aptitude hold and pinning?

["Gustavo Franco" <gustavorfranco@gmail.com>]

On 5/25/06, Adam Funk <a24061@yahoo.com> wrote:
> I recently used the `aptitude hold` command.  It seems to be doing
> what I expected but I'm curious -- what are the differences between
> this and pinning a package in /etc/apt/preferences, and where does
> aptitude hold store the information?  (`grep -r PACKAGENAME /etc/apt/`
> turns up nothing.)

dpkg stores the 'hold' information, see:
dpkg --get-selections|grep -i PACKAGENAME

That's true that pinning can "hold" a package too (not in dpkg terms),
but it's much more powerful than simple hold. That's what you need if
you want mix two releases (eg: stable and testing) defining
priorities. With hold (as in dpkg) it would be insane hold everything
you don't want to see updated, upgrade and revert to the original
state. Do you see?

For more information about apt pinning please search for 'apt howto'
or just 'apt pinning'.

regards,
-- stratus