How to downgrade a package on debian etch?

[Mark Phillips]

On Saturday 05 May 2007 13:23, der.hans wrote:
> Am 05. May, 2007 schwätzte Mark Phillips so:
> > There seems to be a bug in rdesktop that causes a segmentation fault
> > quite
>
> Have you tried tsclient or another RDP client?

The bug is in rdesktop, and to the best of my knowledge, tsclient is a 
front-end for rdesktop. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsclient
>
> > often, which makes the program hard to use. In the Debian bug tracking
> > system, it has been traced back to an upgrade of the package libx11-6
> > from version 1.0.3-6 to 1.0.3-7. The rdesktop folks are working on a fix
> > for rdesktop (the patches floating around the net seem to still have
> > issues), but in the meantime I still need to use rdesktop, and the
> > segmentation faults are getting annoying.
> >
> > I need to downgrade libx11-6 to version 1.0.3-6. I tried the following
> > and it did not work:
> >
> > 1. Edited /etc/apt/preferences to look like this:
> >
> > Package: libx11-6
> > Pin: version 1.0.3-6
> > Pin-Priority: 1001
>
> That would get the downgrade if it were available.
>
> > Package: *
> > Pin release a=testing
> > Pin-Priority: 800
> >
> > Package: *
> > Pin release a=stable
> > Pin-Priority: 600
> >
> > 2. I then did an apt-get update and apt-get upgrade. I thought this might
> > downgrade the package, but it didn't.
> >
> > 3. I then tried apt-get install libx11-6=1.0.3-6 and got this error
> > message:
> >
> > Reading package lists... Done
> > Building dependency tree... Done
> > E: Version '1.0.3-6' for 'libx11-6' was not found
>
> The version you want isn't in the repositories.
>
> Do you have unstable, testing and stable in your sources.list?

I have etch in my sources.list:
deb http://secure-testing.debian.net/debian-secure-testing 
etch/security-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://secure-testing.debian.net/debian-secure-testing 
etch/security-updates main contrib non-free

deb ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian etch main contrib non-free
deb-src ftp://mirrors.kernel.org/debian etch main contrib non-free

>
> apt-cache show libx11-6 | grep ^Version
>
> That'll show you what's available. Perhaps there's another version you can
> grab.

All I have is Version: 2:1.0.3-7
>
> > I searched the Debian site and could not find the older libx11-6 package
> > for i386. Is there a repository somewhere with older versions of
> > packages? My hunch is that I need to add an entry in my sources.list for
> > a repository of the older version. Google did not come up with any
> > obvious choices.
>
> Grab the package from somewhere and toss it in /var/cache/apt/archives.
> Check that for an older version before looking any further, but if you had
> the package in the package cache it should just install it.
>
> Perhaps those of us who run debian can see if we've got it cached.
>
> ls /var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6*
>
> /var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_4.3.0.dfsg.1-14sarge3_i386.deb is what I
> have on my debian boxen.
This is what is on my box:

/var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_2%3a1.0.3-2_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_2%3a1.0.3-3_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_2%3a1.0.3-4_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_2%3a1.0.3-5_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_2%3a1.0.3-7_i386.deb

I guess I could use 1.0.3-5 instead of 1.0.3-6. Hmmm, so I will change my 
preferences for 1.0.3-5.

>
> > Also, am I doing this whole package downgrade process correctly? Is there
> > a better way?
>
> It looks like it.
I must be doing something wrong. 

1. I changed preferences to 

2. apt-get update, apt-get upgrade resulted in 
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 70 not upgraded.

2. apt-get install libx11-6=1.0.3-5 resulted in
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: Version '1.0.3-5' for 'libx11-6' was not found

But ls /var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6* resulted in 

/var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_2%3a1.0.3-2_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_2%3a1.0.3-3_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_2%3a1.0.3-4_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_2%3a1.0.3-5_i386.deb
/var/cache/apt/archives/libx11-6_2%3a1.0.3-7_i386.deb

I also tried apt-get remove libx11-6=1.0.3-7 and got
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: Version '1.0.3-7' for 'libx11-6' was not found

So, what am I missing?

(note, the archives have libx11-6_2:1.0.3.x, so I tried everything with 
libx11-6_2 and had the same results).

>
> Check out cafod. I haven't looked at it in a couple of years, but I think
> it's still mostly accurate. I should likely update it to mention using
> aptitude.
>
> http://www.LuftHans.com/unix/docs/HOWTO/cafod.txt
>
> ciao,
>
> der.hans

Thanks!

Mark