Re: Usefulness of adding APT::Default-Release

[Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>]

On 2019-05-08 13:14 -0500, David Wright wrote:

> I'm trying to ascertain what APT::Default-Release can do for me,
> and what it constrains. In the output that follows, why does
> APT::Default-Release prevent firefox from being upgraded?

Because stretch-updates ≢ stretch, see bug #173215[1] (with
-proposed-updates rather than -updates).

> I comment out the APT::Default-Release line and repeat after the
> ##########. The necessary packages are in apt-cacher-ng's cache
> all the time.
>
> # cat /etc/apt/apt.conf
> # Fetch updates through apt-cacher-ng.
> Acquire::http::Proxy "http://192.168.1.17:3142/";;
> APT::Default-Release "stretch";
> # 
>
> # apt-cache policy firefox-esr
> firefox-esr:
>   Installed: 60.6.1esr-1~deb9u1
>   Candidate: 60.6.1esr-1~deb9u1
>   Version table:
>      60.6.2esr-1~deb9u1 500
>         500 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stretch-updates/main amd64 Packages
>  *** 60.6.1esr-1~deb9u1 990
>         990 http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian stretch/main amd64 Packages
>         990 http://security.debian.org/debian-security stretch/updates/main amd64 Packages
>         100 /var/lib/dpkg/status


You can work around that via preferences, e.g.

Package: *
Pin: release n=stretch-updates
Pin-Priority: 990

to give each package in stretch-updates the same priority as you get for
stretch via APT::Default-Release.  See apt_preferences(5).

Cheers,
       Sven


1. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=173215