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Apt, packages kept back: why and how to resolve it?
(lemmy.g97.top)
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.g97.top/post/56902
Hi, I've this situation when I apt upgrade. There are many pipewire-related packages kept back. Why? How can I solve it?
Thank you!
EDIT: dist-upgrade summary
EDIT2: Ok I solved it with
apt autoremove # only to remove old packages. it didn't solved the problem
apt update
apt dist-upgrade
Is this basically Ubuntu?
They do intentionally hold back packages based on a random value to do gradual rollouts. See below:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1431940/what-are-phased-updates-and-why-does-ubuntu-use-them
Could this be your issue?
Sorry, I forgot to mention that it's Pop OS. And I think it started to be stuck in this mode 2 weeks ago
PopOS is based on Ubuntu, so ~~the Phased Updates answer above most likely explains what you're seeing.~~
If you want to force the immediate upgrading of a given package that is being delayed by phased updates, you can
apt installit. (However, note that this will also mark the package as manually installed if it wasn't already, which means that if you later remove everything else that depended on it, it won't join the list of "no longer needed" packages which get removed byapt autoremove).Typically updates that are being phased should be relatively unimportant, but if you want to know what you're missing you can also say
apt changelogandapt policy(supplying a package name as an argument) to find out what has changed.imo phased updates make sense, but ubuntu's current implementation of them is terribly confusing for commandline users who aren't aware of them.
edit: actually according to this and this PopOS disabled phased updates in their focal (20.04) branch back in March. Maybe they've come back in jammy (22.04)? Or maybe you actually have some other conflict causing packages to be held back.
edit2: I see ubuntu lists all of their currently phased updates here and there are far fewer of them currently so this actually does not explain what is in your screenshot. I would guess that you perhaps have installed some non-standard package that conflicts with the pipewire upgrades; perhaps you can find out what it is by saying
apt install pipewire-binand seeing if it asks to remove something in order to upgrade that.The Ubuntu based distros may have this phased update thing. That AskUbuntu link has a command to override APT package manager to install the held-back packages.
Ubuntu tends to hold back system critical packages in case there are issues. Systems with certain install UUIDs will be 'guinea pigs' and install these packages before everyone else. You can override this behavior and disable phased updates on that particular computer.
see my edits to my previous reply, in case you got the notification about it prior to me editing it.