Pinning a single package

franko · 2019-02-04 03:04:43

Hello!
I have recently installed Devuan ASCII, and then upgraded it to Beuwulf altogether. Then I noticed both ASCII and Beowulf come with the same version of Firefox-ESR, with doesn't support some media content I occasionally watch (yeah, the dirty world of DRM, unfortunately), so I figured to install the latest version of proper Firefox, but I wanted to do it with a Devuan package, which is only available from Ceres repos... So I went for pinning, but I a not exactly an expert in it, so I am asking for advice here.

What I did?
I opened /etc/apt/sources.list and added the following line to the end: deb http://pkgmaster.devuan.org/merged ceres main

Then I created /etc/apt/preferences and added this inside:

Package: *
Pin: release n=beowulf
Pin-Priority: 900

Package: *
Pin: release n=ceres
Pin-Priority: -10

I saved the file, and I did a sudo apt update, went well -- no upgrades from ceres were suggested. So I did sudo apt -t ceres install firefox firefox-l10n-hr (the last one is just for localization, of course). Went well, too -- it installed those two single packages from ceres, and forgot about it, as expected.

So, what do I want now?
I would like to be sure my Firefox package will keep being normally upgraded along with the usual upgrades, without me needing to remember to upgrade it individually, and still without automatically pulling anything else from ceres. Is it possible?
Is it possible to pin only the Firefox-related packages, while ignoring the entire rest of the ceres repos?

Thanks in advance for your replies. :-)

Last edited by franko (2019-02-04 03:07:35)

xinomilo · 2019-02-04 22:33:23

franko wrote:

Is it possible to pin only the Firefox-related packages, while ignoring the entire rest of the ceres repos?

try something like this maybe, added in the same preferences file :

Package: firefox
Pin: release a=ceres
Pin-Priority: 950

Package: firefox-l10n-hr
Pin: release a=ceres
Pin-Priority: 950

Last edited by xinomilo (2019-02-04 22:33:39)

franko · 2019-02-05 00:02:30

Thank you very much! This seems to work. :-)

Just one observation, I was struggling with this before, until I figured it out... XD
According to apt policy, in the "Pin" line it should be stated either "a=unstable", or "n=ceres", otherwise it doesn't work as expected.

Last edited by franko (2019-02-05 00:04:05)

golinux · 2019-02-05 01:09:12

franko wrote:

Thank you very much! This seems to work. :-)
Just one observation, I was struggling with this before, until I figured it out... XD
According to apt policy, in the "Pin" line it should be stated either "a=unstable", or "n=ceres", otherwise it doesn't work as expected.

I am clueless about the intricacies of pinning or apt policy. But I do know there is problem with using the "Suite" name(s) in Devuan because there are times when Debian stable is still our testing etc. Ceres, of course never changes. Hopefully a more useful response will appear for you soon.

franko · 2019-02-05 17:15:35

Yes, I've seen this warning on the Devuan download page. That's why I used code names for pinning, ie. "n=beowulf" and "n=ceres".

Given that little, but important correction (n= instead of a=) xinomilo's suggestion seems to do what I want. But I'll be really sure of it just when a Firefox upgrade kicks in.

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#1 2019-02-04 03:04:43

Pinning a single package

#2 2019-02-04 22:33:23

Re: Pinning a single package

#3 2019-02-05 00:02:30

Re: Pinning a single package

#4 2019-02-05 01:09:12

Re: Pinning a single package

#5 2019-02-05 17:15:35

Re: Pinning a single package

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