dist-upgrade: can unwanted "new" packages be prevented?

[Felix Miata]

I started 'do-dist-upgrade' (oneiric to precise) and looked at the packages 
to be removed and added. It wants to add about 6X as many as it wants to 
remove. Many "new" packages are those I long ago removed in order to prevent 
wasting bandwidth during upgrades by not allowing packages that will 
absolutely never be used. Mostly that means non-western fonts and anything 
else related using or doing anything non-English, but I'm sure there would be 
others if I had a list of candidates to peruse beforehand.

Pinning as described onhttps://help.ubuntu.com/community/PinningHowto doesn't 
seem designed to cover a situation like this. For one thing, I have no list 
of the packages to be prevented. The do-dist-upgrade command scattered 
packages apparently in random order all over the screen instead of offering a 
nice alphabetical list I could save or print.

What do other English Ubuntu users do about this waste?
-- 
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words are persuasive." Proverbs 16:21 (New Living Translation)

  Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 ** a11y rocks!

Felix Miata  ***  http://fm.no-ip.com/