astarix.co.uk

How to easily exclude packages from apt-get upgrades

michael — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 19:39:08 +0000

Once you've got the hang of Debian/Ubuntu's package management system and have had a fine time smoothly upgrading your system periodically, at some point the inevitable will happen: while upgrading a package will get installed that will break something. It could be, as happened to me recently, a version of Google Chrome that won't play nice with some element of Gnome or the GTK toolkit - any button on a webpage that should launch a dialogue box took minutes to do so. Several minutes. So we need to reverse this, by downgrading the package to the previous version, and then prevent it from being reinstalled automatically. How? The most common Debian package manager frontend is apt-get. There are a number of different options, from powerful but complex dpkg, it's more user-friendly brother aptitude, to the full blown X-windows GUI of synaptic. But apt-get is most people's first choice, the most straightforward, and the one which comes with no obvious switch or option included - the following demonstrates how.

End of the Road Festival 2013

michael — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 22:56:02 +0000

End of the Road Festival... I'd half hoped it might be at the foot of the A303, but sadly it's nearer Wiltshire. That's about the only disappointment though, and it's a trivial one.

Festival Internacional de Benicàssim 2013

michael — Wed, 31 Jul 2013 19:51:39 +0000

For a festival once described as – with sun and sand instead of mud and rain – it's somewhat ironic that, even at a fairly sweltering 30°C, it's hotter in London this year.

Kent Spong – vintage synthesiser repair

michael — Wed, 26 Jun 2013 21:52:19 +0000

Sound On Sound talks to Kent Spong, Synthesiser Repair Man, about analogue’s enduring appeal, exploding Moogs, and the importance of knobs.

Chilly Gonzales @ Cadogan Hall

michael — Mon, 24 Jun 2013 20:36:15 +0000

In the grand surroundings of Chelsea's Cadogan Hall, Gonzales strides on stage dressed like an outré Noel Coward in monogrammed dressing gown and slippers.

Meadows in the Mountains festival, Bulgaria

michael — Sat, 22 Jun 2013 00:41:05 +0000

Meadows in the Mountains, deep in the Bulgarian mountains, is somewhere between a festival and a party.

Modeselektor @ The Roundhouse

michael — Mon, 20 May 2013 18:10:31 +0000

Modeselektor and collaborator Apparat deliver their brand of good-humoured heavy Berlin techno at a one-off date at The Roundhouse, London.

CSS @ Village Underground

michael — Wed, 15 May 2013 20:36:59 +0000

Lovefoxx and the rest of the Brazilian five piece still have the same sense of fun after four albums as they did way back in 2006 when they released 'Let's Make Love And Listen To Death From Above', and when Death From Above 1979 were actually around.

Adam Ant @ The Roundhouse

michael — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:29:35 +0000

Adam and the Ant’s huge hits in the early 1980s – at one point he had eight records in the charts simultaneously – are indelibly burnt into anyone who remembers them. Children remember the flamboyant costumes, over the top videos, catchy choruses.… Read the rest

Psychemagik, The Juan Maclean, Medlar @ The Nest

michael — Wed, 01 May 2013 17:35:13 +0000

Descending into The Nest there is only darkness, and disco. Red lasers and lights barely cut the gloom, bodies whisper to each other in the club's seated alcoves, or writhe under the barely-clad ladies of 1970s sexploitation film posters on the walls.