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user61928
Asked: 2012-05-18 01:04:32 +0800 CST

How to downgrade a package via apt-get?

  • 772

How can I downgrade a package to an older version via apt-get?

Other tools are also acceptable but apt-get is preferred.

package-management apt versions downgrade

6 Answers

  1. If you have the version number, or the target release, apt-get supports choosing a particular version or target release. More details can be found on manual page of apt-get. It can also be accessed from terminal by typing man apt-get

    sudo apt-get install <package-name>=<package-version-number> OR

    sudo apt-get -t=<target release> install <package-name>

    is the command to be run. This can be used to down-grade a package to a specific version.

    Remark that when using a target release (option -t), the release priority must greater than 1000 to allow downgrades (see man 5 apt_preferences) otherwise the currently installed version will be kept.

    It has been helpfully pointed out in the comments that

    • apt-cache showpkg <package-name> lists all available versions. (h/t Sparhawk)
    • apt-mark hold <package-name> "holds" the package at the current version, preventing automatic upgrades. (h/t Luís de Sousa )
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  2. Best Answer

    Use:

    apt-get install «pkg»=«version»

    or:

    sudo aptitude install «pkg»=«version»

    Where:

    • «pkg» is the name of the package.
    • «version» is the version number.
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  3. If you have upgraded software using ppa you can downgrade it by using ppa-purge. First you have to install ppa-purge using this code:

    sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

    Then you can remove the ppa using command

    sudo ppa-purge ppa:user/ppa-name

    this will automatically downgrade the software to its original version which shipped with Ubuntu.

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  4. In my opinion, you should first uninstall or purge the package, like:

    sudo apt-get remove <package>

    or

    sudo apt-get purge <package>

    Then, you may download the version you would like to install and keep it in a folder, say abc.deb in Downloads. Open terminal, move to the folder using cd command and install the previous version using dpkg:

    sudo dpkg -i abc.deb

    Or else, there is a small utility called ppa-purge if you mean to downgrade packages updated via PPAs.

    See this thread: http://www.webupd8.org/2009/12/remove-ppa-repositories-via-command.html

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  5. To downgrade you have to do a command like

     sudo apt-get install pkg_name=version

    in your terminal.

    In the place of version put the previous version you want to downgrade to.

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  6. This question is old but Google led me here and I didn't find simple solution that does't require manual version passing when downgrading a bunch of packages to an older release.

    So maybe someone who also needs that will find my solution useful as well.

    There's a tool called apt-show-versions that shows versions installed. To install it:

    $ sudo apt install apt-show-versions

    Make sure APT's cache is up to date:

    $ sudo apt-show-versions -i

    You can easily downgrade all required packages by fine-tuning the regex but here it is:

    $ sudo apt-get install $(apt-show-versions \
   | grep -P 'newer than version in archive' \
   | awk -F: '{print $1"/'$(lsb_release -cs)'"}')

    You should have lsb-release installed for the latter.

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