[Discuss] reverting apt-get upgrades

[tmetro+blu at gmail.com (Tom Metro)]

Richard Pieri wrote:
> Tom Metro wrote:
>> ...I would think it would be a common
>> desire to be able to undo a package upgrade...
> 
> Debian makes a point of upgrades being stable... This stability is 
> usually one of the reasons for choosing Debian.

You are completely correct, but that is also besides the point.
Businesses rarely encounter disasters, and yet we do disaster planning.


Derek Martin wrote:
> Even if it is Debian you're running, you're not required to run the
> stable release, and there are good reasons NOT to.  And, even if that
> IS what you're running, it's not so unusual that a patch breaks some
> feature you're using, intended or not.

I would say it is unusual, but it can happen.

More importantly, apt is used for lots more than merely pulling updates
from Debian stable. As you note, you could be running testing or
unstable. (And you'd think devs working on unstable would be the ones
highly motivated to solve this.)

You might also be installing packages from a third party repository, who
may not subject their packages to testing in the same diversity of
environments as Debian stable gets.

The real-world case where I encountered a need for this was when I went
to upgrade Chrome on an Ubuntu system that was no longer supported by
the current Chrome release. Their package didn't do any dependency
checking until after it had overwritten the older working install of
Chrome. And Google doesn't make old Chrome packages available, so no
easy revert path.


In any case, the lack of responses indicates this isn't a feature most
people are missing.

 -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/