I run aptitude install <somepackage>
20 packages are listed and wants me to comfirm the install
I dont want 5 of those packages
What is the command that prevents those 5 from installing?

That's a hard situation to deal with, actually.

The reason why those packages are listed is because aptitude believes that those 20 packages (including the 5 that you don't want) are a part of the "dependencies" that are required to run the application you're trying to install.

So basically, to install it without those 5 packages using aptitude, I don't think it's possible. However since I'm not the expert with aptitude, I might be wrong.

In yum, you can use the parameter exclude= in /etc/yum.conf.

My only suggestion is to try and install it manually by grabbing the packages from the repositories and use dpkg

If the packages are "dependencies," you need them. If they are "recommendations," which Aptitude will also install by default, you can avoid them with a -R option.

To be more specific I manually installed 5 packages which I want kept, and I dont want Debian's version of those packages.
It doesn't say these 20 are recommended, but rather "will automatically be installed."
And the -R option didn't seem to help.

# aptitude hold <packagename>

aptitude hold works only for packages already installed. You failed. The fact still remains that I dont want to install those 5 unwanted automatically included packages.

You FAILED! Hahahahahha - I just can't get over how he said it... :P - Please don't take any offence

By the way, darthaxul, you might want to just manually install the rest of the 15 packages manually yourself. I know it's bothersome, but I think it's just the easiest way around this.

Just go to the repository website you should be able to find the packages quite easily. Put it in 1 folder and install it with one fell swoop by dpkg.

I guess I might fail too :P