Questions[pinning](ubuntu)

Given this /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb     http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ cosmic main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ cosmic main restricted universe multiverse
deb     http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ disco  main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ disco  main restricted universe multiverse

and this /etc/apt/preferences file:

Package: *
Pin: release a=cosmic
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: release a=disco
Pin-Priority: -10

Running apt install some-package will install the version from cosmic, as I'd expect.

However, running apt source some-package will download the (newer) version from disco.

How can I make apt source obey pin-priorities?

Usually on my Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, I lock package versions with APT-pin functionality.

For example if I want to pin meld to version 1.5.3-1ubuntu1 I create the following pin-file:

cat <<EOF | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/pin-meld
Package: meld
Pin: version 1.5.3-1ubuntu1
Pin-Priority: 1337
EOF

This file applies settings system-wide: apt, apt-get, aptitude and GUI tools such as synaptic and muon respects it.

I know other mechanism - apt-mark. Let's assume. My starting point - I have manually installed meld_1.5.3-1ubuntu1, its pin is removed.

$ apt-mark showhold
$ apt-cache policy meld 
meld:
  Installed: 1.5.3-1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 3.14.2-1
  Version table:
     3.14.2-1 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe i386 Packages
 *** 1.5.3-1ubuntu1 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Then I hold installed version.

$ sudo apt-mark hold meld
meld set on hold.

$ dpkg -l | grep meld
hi  meld                                          1.5.3-1ubuntu1                               all          graphical tool to diff and merge files

APT-mark shows it is on hold. But apt-cache policy meld have no changes

$ apt-cache policy meld 
meld:
  Installed: 1.5.3-1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 3.14.2-1
  Version table:
     3.14.2-1 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe amd64 Packages
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/universe i386 Packages
 *** 1.5.3-1ubuntu1 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

apt-get upgrade reports that meld is kept back:

$ sudo apt-get upgrade 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  meld
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

But if I launch aptitude in interactive mode I have meld in Upgradable Packages:

Actions  Undo  Package  Resolver  Search  Options  Views  Help
C-T: Menu  ?: Help  q: Quit  u: Update  g: Preview/Download/Install/Remove Pkgs
aptitude 0.7.4
--\ Upgradable Packages (1)
  --\ gnome - The GNOME Desktop Environment (1)
    --\ universe - Unsupported Free Software. (1)                                                                                                    
ih    meld    1.5.3-1ubuntu1 3.14.2-1      

and if I accidentally select Actions -> Cancel pending actions the hold will be removed.

As far I can understand synaptic ignores apt-mark markings, its Lock Version functionality works differently.
meld is listed here as Installed (upgradeable). Mark all upgrades button does not auto-select it, but package may be accidentally upgraded by Mark for Upgrade.

Muon works in same manner with packages, held by apt-mark. But what is interesting its option Lock at Current Version writes pin-file to /etc/apt/preferences.d/meld.

Am I understand correctly that APT-pin is more reliable than apt-mark?

I need these packages with the latest upstream version backported for ubuntu/natty

• libccid_1.4.5-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
• libpcsclite1_1.8.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
• libpcsclite-dev_1.8.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
• libusb-1.0-0_1.0.9-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
• libusb-1.0-0-dev_1.0.9-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
• opensc_0.12.2-1ubuntu1ppa1~natty1_amd64.deb
• pcscd_1.8.1-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb pcsc-tools_1.4.18-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb

I tried to build them from source with update but it failed. I am not an expert at packaging and there are so many tutorials and recipes out there.

Do you know a good and up to date tutorial for backporting Ubuntu packages?

How do I get packages from other releases without having to build them myself?

I have upgraded to Ubuntu 10.10 from 10.04, but the upgrade removed some of my packages that I had manually installed. These package (Dekiwiki from Mindtouch amongst others) are not supported by Canonical.
The removal of this packages resulted in the removal of my website. Off course this is my responsibility, but how can I prevent such things from happening in the future?

In order to allow php5.2 being used on lucid, I created a ppa (ppa:txwikinger/php5.2) and build several php5.2 packages there. In order to prefer those packages I have given instructions to pin them. However, the packages php5-mcrypt and php5-imap do not correctly load due to the dependency to phpapi, even phpapi is provided by i.e. php5-cgi, php5-cli which are available. What is the problem?