"Proper" way to install packages from previous release

Solution 1:

Well there is no perfect way, each case has its own limitations. Personally, go with quicker and easier option first.

1. Check upstream project's documentation, merge requests, patches & bug tracker, to see if anyone reported and solved it. Then decide

2. Look for PPA if there any.

3. Try its package by adding older release repository. Following similar method you mention and explained in my answer here. Few rules for easy and clean role back.

   • Test in a machine not in production (VirtualBox, ...)
   • Add *-update & *-security repositories too.
   • Record the log for changes (new installed packages and removed ones)
   • Remove these repositories right after completing the installation.
   • Keep in mind this is like PPA with old packages which it may lead to unmet dependencies in the future.

   Expect issues like conflict with default installed packages and try to remove bunch of packages. This happens much with :i386 multi-arch packages like with wine. Review packages list while installation, it can even remove the desktop and leave you with command line boot.

4. Install from source

5. Update the package or Repackage it and upload it to a PPA, if you are advanced user.

   Here a trick that works sometimes: Copy that package to your own PPA and ask it to build it for your current distribution.