Does apt upgrade to major version releases of packages?

Apt generally updates to the latest package versions in your configured repositories. So major version shifts can happen, but it’s tied to your distribution's update policy. If you want to stop certain apps from auto-upgrading, consider using the command to hold the package. This will help prevent it from updating unless you manually lift the hold.

The decision on whether apt upgrades to a new major version usually depends on your distribution's maintainers. In stable environments, like Ubuntu LTS, major version upgrades are rare, and you typically see these changes only when moving to a new distribution release. So, for instance, even if linux-app v 3.0.0 comes out, you might not see it available on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS until you upgrade to a newer version like 25.10.

If you're wary about major updates during distribution upgrades, using `apt-mark hold _packagename_` is a solid choice. Just be mindful that during a full distribution upgrade, this might complicate things if you're holding onto a package.