I'm attempting to do the equivalent of holding a package via /etc/apt/preferences.d/something.pref in 16.04, and the behaviour seems to have changed from 14.04.
Given some package foo that has an installed version like 2.16.0.2~trusty, in 14.04, the following stanza will prevent apt-get upgrade from upgrading foo:
Package: foo
Pin: version 1
Pin-Priority: 501
You'll note that version 1 does not in fact match anything close the the actual package version.
The same stanza, in 16.04, does not appear to have any effect. Is there a way to do this? I'm aware of apt-mark hold foo, but for various internal reasons that's not as good a solution if using a pin is possible.
The only difference I observe is that when running apt-cache policy foo, on 14.04 I see output that starts like this:
foo:
Installed: 2.16.0.2-2~trusty
Candidate: 2.16.0.2-2~trusty
Package pin: (not found)
But on 16.04 the Package pin: (not found) is not present.
Running a bare apt-cache policy also includes lines like the following on 14.04
Pinned packages:
foo -> (not found)
while on 16.04 the Pinned packages: section is entirely empty.
