Ubuntu

Why are some packages kept back?

Asked by Sidarth Dasari

When I do sudo aptitude upgrade, why is it that some packages are kept back or automatically kept back. What is the difference between the two and how do I get aptitude to upgrade these as well automatically.

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Cesare Tirabassi
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Best Cesare Tirabassi (norsetto) said : 		#1

This is because the package manager is following the policy which is established for the subsidiary repositories.
For instance, gutsy-proposed has a different priority from gutsy-updates and gutsy-backport (gutsy-backport would be the lowest). This is done to prevent automatic upgrading to versions which may not be as stable as wished by the user and are not deemed necessary.
You can check the policy being followed with apt-cache. For instance this morning I had the following message:

cesare@norsetto:~$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  libxine1 libxine1-ffmpeg xserver-xorg-video-ati
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 3 not upgraded.

A quick look to apt-cache is telling me why:

cesare@norsetto:~$ apt-cache policy libxine1 libxine1-ffmpeg
libxine1:
  Installed: 1.1.7-1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1.1.8-2ubuntu2~gutsy1
  Version table:
     1.1.8-2ubuntu2~gutsy1 0
        500 http://it.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-backports/main Packages
 *** 1.1.7-1ubuntu1 0
        500 http://it.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
libxine1-ffmpeg:
  Installed: 1.1.7-1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1.1.8-2ubuntu2~gutsy1
  Version table:
     1.1.8-2ubuntu2~gutsy1 0
        500 http://it.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy-backports/universe Packages
 *** 1.1.7-1ubuntu1 0
        500 http://it.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/universe Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Now you can force the installation if you want (in your case with a "sudo aptitude install libxine1 libxine1-ffmpeg" command).

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Sidarth Dasari (sirsid) said : 		#2

Thanks Cesare Tirabassi, that solved my question.

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Nausser (van-brian) said : 		#3

Thanks. This worked to install new headers via cli. I simply put 'sudo aptitude upgrade' and all was well. I didn't know aptitude was different than apt-get.

Thanks!