In Debian / Ubuntu, sometimes you want to keep a package at a specific version, and not upgrade it. For instance, the Perl module DateTime::Timezone in Ubuntu Dapper lists its version as 1:0.37-1, when the version is actually 0.37. This makes it difficult if I build a new package of the perl module at version 0.7701, because though I can force install that version, if I run an apt-get upgrade later, it’s going to install the former, because it sees it as version 1, which is greater than 0.77.
Fortunately, the fix is easy: put the package on hold. This prevents it from being upgraded, though that also means you won’t get updates to it from the main repositories. If you built it yourself, then that might not be such a bad thing. To put a package on hold, you do:
echo packagename hold | sudo dpkg --set-selections
Replace packagename above with the name of your package (for instance, I would put libdatetime-timezone-perl). Did it work? Let’s see!
$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
libdatetime-timezone-perl
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
$
Looks good to me!
Reference
Another solution (I prefer it on my debian computers) is a apt-pining…
Or you can also just type easily:
aptitude hold packagename
(and aptitude unhold packagename to release the hold on your package).