How to Get Older Packages from PPA

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Can I install an older version of a specific package from a ppa? Specifically, I want to get an older version of xserver-xorg-video-intel (and dependencies) from xorg-edgers ppa. The reason is that the older version seemed to work with my hardware. The present version seems to feature (I would like to found out if it is really the source) severe crashes as the present stable releases of this package do. I tried 

apt-get install pkg=version

but didn't succeed. I am afraid that the packages in the cache are lost after

apt-get clean

I do not even know the precise version number of the previous version, assuming that it doesn't have to be exactly one less. The current version is xserver-xorg-video-intel-2.20.15
Alternatively: Is there a place, e.g. at launchpad, where I can manually download the previous version of the package?

Best Answer

Yes, you can install a specific version of a package with apt-get install pkg=version but the version you want needs to be available from one of your APT sources.

e.g.

$ apt-cache policy dpkg
dpkg:
  Installed: 1.16.12
  Candidate: 1.16.12
  Version table:
     1.17.1 0
        800 http://localhost:3142/debian/ unstable/main amd64 Packages
 *** 1.16.12 0
        900 http://localhost:3142/debian/ testing/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

in this case, both 1.17.1 and 1.16.12 are available to APT. 1.16.12 is installed.

Like the main Ubuntu archive, PPAs remove superseded packages. So, only one version is available for each, Ubuntu release, in a PPA.

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