I am trying to build an external firewall/nat/dns box.

No gui.

The depends are dragging in x11-common, apache, mysql and who knows what else. I can apt-get remove <package> but the next time I update the system they will be pulled back in.

I have been told that I can just put a hold on the packages and that will solve my problem. But I have to question that, as I think if memory serves, putting a package on hold prevents the package that depends on it from being updated too.

Can anyone confirm one way or the other for me?

Some google results indicate that putting a package on hold will prevent other packages from being update. But most don't even discuss the issue.

Thanks.

Hold Packages example.

Thanks Satyaveer Arya,

I have already read that page and it confirms that when I hold one package all that depend on it get held too.

So if I hold x11-common, which provides file structure for the xserver, I hold lsb-base which is pulled in by sed and ncurses-bin inturn by install-info, libselinux1, libncurses5 inturn by libgpm2

I'm just guessing that the system will not work without a couple of those and libc6 is not included in the output of debtree