Bug#825113: apt: APT's specific preference affects all available versions

[Александр Цамутали <astsmtl@yandex.ru>]

On 24.05.2016 17:31, Julian Andres Klode wrote:
> ...
> It's "expected" (for some value of expected), the pre-1.1 engine does not deal
> well with -1 pins; in contrast to the 1.1 and newer engine used in testing,
> unstable, experimental.
>
> The reason here is that in the pre-1.1 engine, a package can have exactly one
> pin. This pin must match the candidate version for it to be useful. As a work
> around, you can probably pin the other versions above 1000.

My real use case for -1 pinning is intricate and cannot be replaced by 
pinning other versions (version?) higher. I found another workaround though.

> In 1.1 and newer, packages have no pins. Instead, versions have pins. So, in your
> case, you'd get:
>
> xscreensaver:
>   Installed: (none)
>   Candidate: 5.30-1+deb8u1
>   Version table:
>      5.30-1+deb8u2 -1
>         500 http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie-updates/main amd64 Packages
>      5.30-1+deb8u1 500
>         500 http://httpredir.debian.org/debian/ jessie/main amd64 Packages
>         500 http://security.debian.org/ jessie/updates/main amd64 Packages
>
> That said, it's ridiculous to blacklist the fixed xscreensaver version.

This is a mockup.

> Anyway, that's one of the many problems fixed in 1.1, so you'll be happy in the
> next Debian release (unfortunately, the new pinning engine is too invasive to
> bring to older APT versions).

Cool!



--
Александр Цамутали