<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>apt_preferences</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>5</manvolnum>
+ <refmiscinfo class="manual">APT</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
<!-- Man page title -->
<refsect1>
<title>Description</title>
<para>The APT preferences file <filename>/etc/apt/preferences</filename>
-can be used to control which versions of packages will be selected
+and the fragment files in the <filename>/etc/apt/preferences.d/</filename>
+folder can be used to control which versions of packages will be selected
for installation.</para>
<para>Several versions of a package may be available for installation when
The APT preferences file does not affect the choice of instance, only
the choice of version.</para>
+<para>Note that the files in the <filename>/etc/apt/preferences.d</filename>
+directory are parsed in alphanumeric ascending order and need to obey the
+following naming convention: The files have no or "<literal>pref</literal>"
+as filename extension and which only contain alphanumeric, hyphen (-),
+underscore (_) and period (.) characters - otherwise they will be silently
+ignored.</para>
+
<refsect2><title>APT's Default Priority Assignments</title>
<para>If there is no preferences file or if there is no entry in the file
</refsect2>
</refsect1>
+<refsect1>
+<title>Files</title>
+ <variablelist>
+ &file-preferences;
+ </variablelist>
+</refsect1>
+
<refsect1>
<title>See Also</title>
<para>&apt-get; &apt-cache; &apt-conf; &sources-list;