Faulty Software Updater on 16.04

[Bret Busby]

On 07/10/2017, Wynona Stacy Lockwood <stacy at guppylog.com> wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 6, 2017 at 11:54 AM, Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:
>> The problem remains that I can not now update the system without
>> updating all packages.
>
> That's laughably false. NO ONE is forcing you to use any particular
> tool in this way. You have options. Just off the top of my head, one
> way to do this is, you could upgrade the packages by name, one at a
> time, or all at once via the command line by explicitly specifying
> them. Now one says you must use synaptic, which is deprecated anyway.
> No one is forcing you to use apt-get upgrade or apt-get dist-upgrade.
> Why not simply specify the packages you want to update via `sudo
> apt-get install $FOO` where $FOO is a package, or a list of packages
> separated by spaces?
>

If you read what I have previously posted, it is really quite simple.

Running sudo apt-get update showed that 219 packages are subject to
being updated.

1 package is to be removed.

The updates include Firefox, which I do not trust in versions later
than the installed version on this machine; 53.0.3 .

So, I want to perform the system update, without updating Firefox and
its related packages, such as some associated libfirefox or something.

As I tried, and, could not find any other way to avoid updating the
particular package (firefox), I tried using synaptic, that I
remembered, I had once upon a time, been able to use, to perform a
system update, while having the option of deselecting any particular
packages (like firefox) from the update..

The functionality of excluding particular packages from a system
update, has. now, even been eliminated from synaptic, in the
progressive reduction of system functionality.

-- 

Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia

..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
 Chapter 28 of Book 1 of
 "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
 A Trilogy In Four Parts",
 written by Douglas Adams,
 published by Pan Books, 1992

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