how to pin specific packages based on origin

[Derek Broughton]

P Kapat wrote:

> On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 9:19 AM, Derek Broughton <news at pointerstop.ca>
> wrote:
>> P Kapat wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 12:47 PM, P Kapat <kap4lin at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Specifically, why doesn't the following pinning work?
>>>>
>>>> Package: *vlc*
>>>> Pin: origin ppa.launchpad.net
>>>> Pin-Priority: 800
>>>>
>>>> Whereas the following does:
>>>>
>>>> Package: *
>>>> Pin: origin ppa.launchpad.net
>>>> Pin-Priority: 800
>>>>
>>>> This is not what I want! I just want to pin the vlc packages from
>>>> launchpad at higher piority. This is not vlc or launchpad specific. I
>>>> have tried to ping other packages from different origin, without
>>>> success; unless I pin ALL (using *) packages from that origin!
>>>
>>> No apt- guru here? Share some of your apt-fu....
>>
>> Well, I've done it before, but pinning is pretty arcane and always liable
>> to
>> work differently from your expectations, so I gave it up.  I went looking
>> for examples when you asked, but I don't have anything left around.
> 
> Thanks Derek.
> 
> I certainly agree with your point of pinning being arcane. I've always
> stayed away from it, unless forced to. The current days in Hardy are
> very difficult. I want to use some of the latest software like vlc,
> opera, R, etc. but official repos won't have them. So, I have to
> resort to other repos, and of them, ppa.launchpad is a huge one. But I
> don't want unnecessary packages to be upgraded just because of
> enabling these repos. So, I am forced to apt-pinning. Where do you
> suggest I mail? Debian-users? Anywhere apt-specific?

For things where I want _some_ currently bleeding edge package, but don't
need to continue to stay on the edge - I just want a particular feature - I
usually just enable the repo, download the package and its dependencies and
then turn off that repo, expecting the official package to catch up and
supercede that package eventually.

Any other packages I use where I want to stay at the forefront, at the
moment anyway, come with repositories that contain just a package or two
(like Wine from winehq).
-- 
derek