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Ivan
Asked: 2011-11-06 13:29:30 +0800 CST

How to forbid a specific package to be installed?

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Can I configure Ubuntu to never install a specific package even if it is required by another package I install?

apt

3 Answers

  1. As in Debian we can use apt-pinning for version and installation control in Ubuntu too.

    To block the installation of a given package we may put the following lines in /etc/apt/preferences

    Package: <nameofpackage>
Pin: origin ""
Pin-Priority: -1

    By giving a negative priority for this pin we will block the installation of <nameofpackage> from not further specified origin, i.e. our local repository. Of course we can use apt-pinning to pin a certain package version or specific origin.

    Before you proceed it is strongly recommended to read the documentation given above and the manpage from apt_preferences because errors in these files are not checked by apt and if they occur may break your package management.

    For an alternative, and to prevent updating of a given package see:

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  2. I have a package that keeps sneaking back in and breaking git

    sudo apt-mark hold libgnutls-deb0-28

    should prevent that package from being installed

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  3. In debian you can block a package, and that package wont upgrade anymore

    # echo name_of_package hold | dpkg --set-selections

    but I'm not sure that you can forbid

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