Apt preferences: How to avoid a specific version of a package?

kimiko_at_brokenmoon2.xs4all.nl
Date: 10/06/03

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    Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2003 19:46:59 +0200
To: debian-user@lists.debian.org

    How can I keep apt-get from trying specific versions of some
    packages when doing a dist-upgrade?

    I have unstable as default in apt.conf, so that gets priority
    990. Then I have assigned priority 995 to experimental in
    preferences so that apt-get will upgrade to the latest and
    greatest (-pain-in-the-behind, sometimes :o) versions
    available there. However, some packages from experimental
    don't work correctly (as can be expected of course). I can
    downgrade to the unstable version manually, that is not the
    problem, but how do I keep apt-get from upgrading it again
    to that same version at the next run?

    For example, the 2.3.2.ds1-1 version of libc6 from experimental
    makes lots of programs crash, so I don't want that particular
    version installed. However, I do want to keep tracking unstable
    and experimental when a newer version is uploaded. So I can't
    just pin libc6 to version 2.3.2-8 or release a=unstable.

    I tried to do this by adding lines such as these to preferences:
    |Package: packagename
    |Pin: version bad-version-number
    |Pin-Priority: -10
    because the apt_preferences man page says this will prevent that
    version from being installed. This does not work. apt-get keeps
    trying to install the bad version.

    Is there another way I'm overlooking? 

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