Ubuntu freezing packages

Recently I decided to move my desktop environment to the latest Ubuntu 13 (Saucy) to gain the latest packages:

root@ubuntu13:~# cat /etc/lsb-release 
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=13.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=saucy
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 13.10"
root@ubuntu13:~#

This is not LTS (long term) and it gets its packages updated very often.
From the other side - I'm running it through Oracle VirtualBox and I'm sick of recompiling modules each time the kernel gets updated. Having VirtualBox modules not aligned with the kernel (guest additions) means I'm loosing auto-resize guest display, cannot mount host filesystems and cannot use shared clipboard.

So I need simply ignore updates for a set of packages. And starting with Ubuntu 12 there is a possiblity to mark the packaged on hold. Here is what is enough to gain the goal:

apt-mark hold linux-generic
apt-mark hold linux-firmware
apt-mark hold linux-image-\*
apt-mark hold linux-headers-\*

apt-mark showhold

Nice!

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