[NBLUG/talk] (k)ubuntu, apt-get, versionitis

[Bob Blick]

I went to install some development packages on a kubuntu machine, but I
couldn't do it because it would break some packages. Evidently the
available development packages (for example let's say qt3-mt-dev) are at
version 3.3.3.4 whereas the already-installed qt3-mt package is version
3.3.3.7 due to my previously letting kubuntu update me. So basically the
repositories do not have corresponding versions.

This was a fresh install that I had done, then done update, then tried to
install the development tools.

What I ended up doing was reformatting and reinstalling, then installing
the development packages, and not doing an update. Clearly this is not
what a pro would do.

What would have been the right thing to do here? Since I can't rely on the
ubuntu package maintainers to be up to date, how do I go about rolling
back in a graceful way? There were dozens of instances.

But wait, there's more :) Matching kernel-source and kernel-header are not
available for all the available versions.

It makes me never want to update anything, lest I be locked out in the
future from installing a development package.

Thanks,

Bob