Joentjuh
July 23rd, 2011, 11:05 PM
Is there any way to filter certain packages from apt?
Say, I'm running a headless machine and don't want to install Xorg (accidentally). Can I 'blacklist' the xorg-server package and thus filter all packages depending on xorg? (so they don't even show up in aptitude/'apt-cache search').
Or, in my case, kdebase-runtime and some other things like MTAs.
Not talking about synaptic, but the pure and 'basic' apt (and aptitude) software.
Since you can already 'hold' a package, why not blacklist?
I've seen somewhere (http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Debian/2009-07/msg00479.html) that this could be done with /etc/apt/preferences by using "Pin"... But never could get this to work and I'm under the impression this only works if a version of this package is already installed.
I understand I could always write something myself that acts as an intermediary and intercept the Packages file between any PPA/official source and filter any package in my mask -- which seems like a lot of superfluous work, but prevents the system of even knowing there is any such package... But it's not dynamic and thus am hoping something like this already exists.
Say, I'm running a headless machine and don't want to install Xorg (accidentally). Can I 'blacklist' the xorg-server package and thus filter all packages depending on xorg? (so they don't even show up in aptitude/'apt-cache search').
Or, in my case, kdebase-runtime and some other things like MTAs.
Not talking about synaptic, but the pure and 'basic' apt (and aptitude) software.
Since you can already 'hold' a package, why not blacklist?
I've seen somewhere (http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Debian/2009-07/msg00479.html) that this could be done with /etc/apt/preferences by using "Pin"... But never could get this to work and I'm under the impression this only works if a version of this package is already installed.
I understand I could always write something myself that acts as an intermediary and intercept the Packages file between any PPA/official source and filter any package in my mask -- which seems like a lot of superfluous work, but prevents the system of even knowing there is any such package... But it's not dynamic and thus am hoping something like this already exists.