dpkg - how to mark all packages 'Hold'

[Steve F]

Other than using dselect and marking each package individually, is there a way to mark all packages hold? Something that could be used in a script maybe?

[probono]

If you set all on hold, you can't upgrade anything...

[metavoid]

deleted: didn't work as expected

[Steve F]

Yep!, that's true. Hold will prohibit dselect from updating. It won't disallow me from overiding a hold for update on a package by package basis. All I have to do is mark the packages I want updated with +.

Since I've been working with Knoppix V3.6 I've found that if the first thing I do in dselect is update, nothing in select, go to install, I get a list of about 20 new packages to install and 384 to be upgraded. The first few times I did this I thought okay, let it do what it thinks it should do. Boy, was I wrong. I could never get a good test boot after that. It would try to install mount and sysv-init and remove mount-aes and who knows what else.

Now, the first thing I do is mark all packages hold. Then update so I can select a few packages I want (like aptitude) without interference from dselect update setting its own agenda of what packages I should have. My test boots now work consistently as I winnow the package list down smaller and smaller. Once I have a base package list, I'll selectivily update packages to latest versions.

At this point I have most of the process in script except for setting all packages to hold. I am still doing this manually and would like to have it done for me from a script. Any ideas?

[metavoid]

Yeah. I actually wanted the same from a script so I fiddled around..

# dpkg-query -W --showformat='echo ${Package} hold | dpkg --set-selections\n' > holdall
# chmod 777 holdall
# holdall

This creates a script with all package names found with the query thing and append cmds to hold the package.

--> It takes quite some time to finish.
4 mins here.
you can open another shell and write
dpkg --get-selections
and see how far its come down the list

hope it helps

[Steve F]

Brilliant!

I looked and looked and didn't see that solution. man dpkg describes the option but not clearly enough for me.

I changed the script and it ran on my system in about 1 second. Do you get the same?

dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package} hold\n' | dpkg --set-selections

Thanks again metavoid

[metavoid]

>I changed the script and it ran on my system in about 1 second. Do you get the same?

Well first time I was compiling and it took like 4 mins.

Then I reran it agian to unhold all again and that took like 2-3 secs.

Glad it worked for you. :)

Ohh. A far more clever version :)
Thanks. Im not good at bash yet.

dpkg-query -W --showformat='${Package} hold\n' | dpkg --set-selections

This one does the job in 1 sec !

[Steve F]

I'm not all that great. One of the things I do early in creating a script is seperate the input and output to files so I can see what is being created at each stage. When I get it working I link them up with pipe.

My first computers 20 years ago were unix and custom real-time operating systems. Oh, ya, there was a time I had everything Amiga. About 15 years ago I ended up on MS stuff doing database applications. I only started back into unix a month ago. Boy things have changed; except, at a basic level it is just as I remember when I started so many years ago. Catching up on all the new great stuff everybody is doing has my head spinning.

[metavoid]

Hehe. 20 years ago I had something called a power 3000. I had an 16 KB! extra memory module and it was really hardcore..
Been using Windows since first beta. Started linux 2 years ago and
suddenly found home. Im writing this inside a virtual pc running knoppix 3.6. It works great. When finsih fiddling with it, I partimage it to a real partition and use the image to nuke XP. After I found knoppix I felt at home. Its really powerfull and there is very little fiddling with hardware.