Brian O'Keefe writes:
I'd like to run "apt dist-update" but I don't want to upgrade FF as I'm using FF52 ESR as any newer version doesn't support some add-ons I want to keep. Hence I never upgrade it though if the add-ons maintainers adapt to the new FF I certainly will too.
I'm assuming you mean dist-upgrade, since dist-update isn't a valid apt command (at least on my system, it says Invalid operation). You can tell apt to "hold" a package, so it won't install a new version on top of what you already have: sudo aptitude hold firefox-esr (or whatever the package name is that you want to hold. Apparently you can also use sudo apt-mark hold firefox-esr, if you don't have aptitude installed, though personally I've only set holds with aptitude. You should probably hold all the firefox-esr-related packages you have installed, so get a list with aptitude search firefox-esr | grep '^i' or apt list --installed 'firefox-esr*' to see if you need to hold any additional packages. I don't know for sure that any of this will work with the GUI update manager you're using, but it works for apt-get dist-upgrade from the command line. You can see your held packages with aptitude search '~ahold' ...Akkana