How do you reset your packages back to the original repos?

[gregoryshock]

Please bare with me. My short story is going to talk about Linux Mint first. I found the answer to that question but it created another question in my mind. I also run Xubuntu 18.04 on all my other computers. My final question is about Xubuntu, and I assume whatever answer I might get, will probably work with all the Ubuntu flavors.

Tue Jun 12 21:16:05 2018 I was doing some DVD stuff in Linux Mint 18.3. I was advised to install the latest FFmpeg. The PPA was connected too was ppa:jonathonf/ffmpeg-3. And that was how I left things until now. The PPA went away. I had only two options. 1) Try to downgrade FFmpeg or 2) Try to upgrade it. I first tried option 2, and it uninstalled Winff, my favorite graphical front end for quickly converting things. So next I tried downgrading it. That is when things got really bad. There was other software depending on the newer version of FFmpeg, and things got lost, and now they are kinda reinstalled. I recently learned that Winff is retired. A guy on the Linux Mint Forums helped me. But it got me wondering. If something like this happens on a Distro like Xubuntu what do you do? How do you reset or downgrade your packages back to the original repos?

[mörgæs]

I was advised to install the latest FFmpeg.

Then I would install the latest Mint or Buntu release. Adding a new PPA to an old release doesn't make sense to me.

For the same reason I never downgrade or reset to an original repo. I tried to use PPA's some times back in the good old days but in the end it often turned out to be a waste of time.

[CatKiller]

If something like this happens on a Distro like Xubuntu what do you do? How do you reset or downgrade your packages back to the original repos?

There's a tool that does exactly that, called ppa-purge. It removes the packages from the PPA, back to the versions from the repositories, and then removes the entries from your sources.list.

[gregoryshock]

Then I would install the latest Mint or Buntu release. Adding a new PPA to an old release doesn't make sense to me.

For the same reason I never downgrade or reset to an original repo. I tried to use PPA's some times back in the good old days but in the end it often turned out to be a waste of time.

I only use PPAs when it's necessary. Because I know they can cause problems. I never ran into problem where the PPA actually went away, and was stuck like this. I am going to change the OS on that computer. I just haven't decided on which one I'm going to change it too. I experimented with Xubuntu 18.04 on an external ssd in the icy dock. It worked really good. But I have a bug in an application that I would need to start another post about.

There's a tool that does exactly that, called ppa-purge. It removes the packages from the PPA, back to the versions from the repositories, and then removes the entries from your sources.list.

Do you mean this command right here?

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge && sudo ppa-purge ppa:jonathonf/ffmpeg-4

Found on this website/instruction: http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/...tu-18-0416-04/

I tried it but it was going to remove a lot more then I wanted to remove. Scared me so I didn't go through with it.

[mörgæs]

But I have a bug in an application...

Yes, 18.04 is a museum for old bugs. Better to try to see if it's fixed in 19.10.

[gregoryshock]

Yes, 18.04 is a museum for old bugs. Better to try to see if it's fixed in 19.10.

What I don't like about Xubuntu 19.10 is that if you have an Nvidia card, it automatically installs the drivers. That made it harder for me to do the testing I wanted. I also had problems with compton, which I needed to solve screen tearing on intel graphics.

[CatKiller]

I tried it but it was going to remove a lot more then I wanted to remove. Scared me so I didn't go through with it.

Packages depend on packages, which depend on packages, and they all have to be the correct version. That's why PPAs exist, which contain all of those dependencies for packages newer than the ones in the repositories, and why ppa-purge exists, to unscramble that egg.

All of the packages that would be removed or downgraded are those that were installed when you added the PPA in the first place. That's potentially a lot of packages, depending on the specifics of the PPA.