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[Fixed] "following packages have been kept back" Error in Ubuntu (itsfoss.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by ozoned@piefed.social to c/linux@lemmy.world
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I'm on Debian 12. I did an upgrade today and got a message that pipewire-audio had been kept back. A few weeks ago I did a:

sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports pipewire

Which pulled in the newer version of pipewire so I could resolve an issue.

So I searched for 'apt kept back' and found the above article. I wanted to share it for anyone else in the future hitting something like this.

My solution is just to do nothing. Debian 13 should only be a few months away at this point and when I attempt to run an update only for pipewire-audio it indicates that I need to update wireplumber. I don't really want to go down the dependency hole at this time, so just going to let it chill.

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[-] who@feddit.org 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

A package is "kept back" when it faces requirements that can't be resolved while adhering to the given options.

For example, this can happen when a dependency at a certain version is required, but that version is available only from a source (e.g. backports) whose priority is too low to be used by default*. You can resolve this particular situation by naming not only the main package, but also the dependency in question, on your apt install -t bookworm-backports command line. (The -t bookworm-backports option overrides the default source priorities.)

Looking at the dependencies of pipewire-audio in backports, I see that one of them (wireplumber) has a version requirement that can be satisfied from backports, so this might work for you:

sudo apt install -t bookworm-backports pipewire wireplumber

BTW, I'm sure that pipewire from backports works on Bookworm, because I use it myself. You don't have to wait for Trixie.

*You can get details about how the priority system works via man apt_preferences.

[-] ozoned@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

That's awesome! Thank you so much for the thorough explanation. :-)

this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
17 points (94.7% liked)

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