How to downgrade a package via apt-get?

Question

How can I downgrade a package to an older version via apt-get?

Other tools are also acceptable but apt-get is preferred.

Answer 1

If you have the version number, or the target release, apt-get supports choosing a particular version or target release. More details can be found on manual page of apt-get. It can also be accessed from terminal by typing man apt-get

sudo apt-get install <package-name>=<package-version-number> OR

sudo apt-get -t=<target release> install <package-name>

is the command to be run. This can be used to down-grade a package to a specific version.

Remark that when using a target release (option -t), the release priority must greater than 1000 to allow downgrades (see man 5 apt_preferences) otherwise the currently installed version will be kept.

It has been helpfully pointed out in the comments that

• apt-cache showpkg <package-name> lists all available versions. (h/t Sparhawk)
• apt-mark hold <package-name> "holds" the package at the current version, preventing automatic upgrades. (h/t Luís de Sousa )

Answer 2

Use:

apt-get install «pkg»=«version»

or:

sudo aptitude install «pkg»=«version»

Where:

• «pkg» is the name of the package.
• «version» is the version number.

Answer 3

If you have upgraded software using ppa you can downgrade it by using ppa-purge. First you have to install ppa-purge using this code:

sudo apt-get install ppa-purge

Then you can remove the ppa using command

sudo ppa-purge ppa:user/ppa-name

this will automatically downgrade the software to its original version which shipped with Ubuntu.

Answer 4

In my opinion, you should first uninstall or purge the package, like:

sudo apt-get remove <package>

or

sudo apt-get purge <package>

Then, you may download the version you would like to install and keep it in a folder, say abc.deb in Downloads. Open terminal, move to the folder using cd command and install the previous version using dpkg:

sudo dpkg -i abc.deb

Or else, there is a small utility called ppa-purge if you mean to downgrade packages updated via PPAs.

See this thread: http://www.webupd8.org/2009/12/remove-ppa-repositories-via-command.html

Answer 5

To downgrade you have to do a command like

 sudo apt-get install pkg_name=version

in your terminal.

In the place of version put the previous version you want to downgrade to.

Answer 6

This question is old but Google led me here and I didn't find simple solution that does't require manual version passing when downgrading a bunch of packages to an older release.

So maybe someone who also needs that will find my solution useful as well.

There's a tool called apt-show-versions that shows versions installed. To install it:

$ sudo apt install apt-show-versions

Make sure APT's cache is up to date:

$ sudo apt-show-versions -i

You can easily downgrade all required packages by fine-tuning the regex but here it is:

$ sudo apt-get install $(apt-show-versions \
   | grep -P 'newer than version in archive' \
   | awk -F: '{print $1"/'$(lsb_release -cs)'"}')

You should have lsb-release installed for the latter.