apt / apt-get¶

the tool to manage debian / ubuntu packages, I always forget some commands, so let put them here.

version provided by repository / repository used by package¶

especially important for debian since all packages are always outdated by 10 years:

apt-cache policy irssi

this is also useful if you do a major version upgrade and the new package is provided by the OS instead of a 3^rd party:

ubuntu 20.04 for podman:

apt-cache policy podman

podman:
  Installed: 100:3.4.2-2
  Candidate: 100:3.4.2-4
  Version table:
     100:3.4.2-4 500
        500 http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/devel:/kubic:/libcontainers:/stable/xUbuntu_20.04  Packages
 *** 100:3.4.2-2 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ubuntu 22.04 for podman:

podman:
  Installed: 3.4.4+ds1-1ubuntu1
  Candidate: 3.4.4+ds1-1ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 3.4.4+ds1-1ubuntu1 500
        500 http://es.clouds.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/universe amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

find package for filename / executable¶

you want to run ping but you have no idea which package provides ping:

apt-get install apt-file
apt-file update

then do something like

apt-file search ping
# or
apt-file search /bin/ping

you can also use dpkg:

dpkg -S /usr/bin/bsd-mailx

pin version¶

sometimes you want or need to pin a package to a specific version since it'll break everything. looking at you, docker. this happened twice already.

vi /etc/apt/preferences.d/docker
Package: docker-ce
Pin: version 5:20.10.4~3-0~ubuntu-focal
Pin-Priority: 900

this will pin the package docker-ce to version 5:20.10.4~3-0~ubuntu-focal by using a high priority of 900, the default is usually 500.

You can check the package priority with the apt-cache policy command (see above) to adjust the priority, but why not stick to 900. or over 9000.