On these two machines, based on the same lubuntu version, but with a different history of package installation and removal, I get two different responses to the command.
sudo apt-get install --dry-run network-manager
One outputs:
network-manager is already the newest version (1.10.6-2ubuntu1.2)
The other outputs:
network-manager is already the newest version (1.10.14-0ubuntu2)
Output to the next commands is identical:
lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 18.04.3 LTS
Release: 18.04
Codename: bionic
uname -a
Linux (machine-name) 4.15.0.74-generic #84-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 19 08:06:00 UTC 2019 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux
How can they get a different candidate? Is this based on the set of currently installed packages and can the dependencies be viewed?
As requested in the comments by user535733, the output of command :
apt-cache policy network-manager
network-manager:
Installed: 1.10.14-0ubuntu2
Candidate: 1.10.14-0ubuntu2
Version table:
*** 1.10.14-0ubuntu2 100
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
1.10.6-2ubuntu1.2 500
500 http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-updates/main i386 Packages
1.10.6-2ubuntu1.1 500
500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic-security/main i386 Packages
1.10.6-2ubuntu1 500
500 http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic/main i386 Packages
apt-cache policy network-manager
on the machine with1.10.14.-0ubuntu2
apt-cache policy
will reveal; since cosmic (18.10) is EOL it's package no longer appears in provided link)