what do you want to see in future apt versions ?

[Tom H]

On Sun, Jun 7, 2020 at 6:11 PM Ralf Mardorf via ubuntu-users
<ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Sun, 7 Jun 2020 17:38:00 +0200, Tom H wrote:


>>> Btw. I wonder if "--allow-downgrades" does anything at all. I noticed
>>> that it doesn't allow downgrades on my 16.04 install, when I wrote
>>> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/xubuntu-users/2020-June/011347.html
>>> , so I needed to write the odd workaround.
>>
>> I've never used it, but I've used '-o
>> Dpkg::Options::="--force-downgrade"' with 'install
>> <package>=<version>' for a similar purpose.
>
> When using <package>=<version> it's not needed to add the -o Dpkg
> option, that's what I've done by the above link. Without
> <package>=<version> the downgrade fails.

I guess that I was using a belt-and-braces approach. If it's not
needed, I don't know.


> [weremouse at moonstudio ~]$ apt-cache show gvfs | grep V
> Version: 2016:07-13-moonstudio
> Version: 1.28.2-1ubuntu1~16.04.3
> Version: 1.28.1-1ubuntu1
> [weremouse at moonstudio ~]$ sudo apt install -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-downgrade" gvfs
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree
> Reading state information... Done
> gvfs is already the newest version (2016:07-13-moonstudio).
> 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
>
> It makes sense, that downgrade requires information about the wanted
> version. It's just redundant to add --force-downgrade.

I've just remembered why I use "force-downgrade". The first time, or
one of the first times, that I used it, downgrading created a
dependency problem and I needed the "force" to downgrade.