Broken packages

... could it be that kpackage itself is at fault?

Please can someone help me - I cannot use kpackage until I have got rid of the broken packages.

But you can always open up Synaptic instead, which I do use when I need a graphical interface. There "broken" will be an entry in the left-hand pane. Click on that, and right-click each of the broken packages to remove.

Or consult the manual for KPackage. I don't have KDE on this box, but if I did I would open Konqueror and type man:kpackage in the address bar.

... Sorry Jerry,
I should've said that I was using Synaptic ... and it is synaptic that I get told that if I want to fix the broken files mentioned above openoffice becomes a broken file which synaptic will not let me fix!

However, in KPackage, if I try to, for instance, fix libc6 I get thousands of files (it almost seems to be every file on the computer) which tell me each one depends upon libc6 then next to each file it says "but it will not be installed" ... I don't know what that means so I am am a bit reticant to uninstall libc6.

In KPackage I am informed that there are two packages of libc6 - one has a "?" before it, the second one has "U" before it. I presume that is relevant ... but I don't know what to do.

... Should I uninstall libc6? Will it have an effect on the computer?

Help me Oh Be One Kanobe ... your my only hope!

...you are in big doodoo!

First from the Debian page: libc6 "contains the standard libraries that are used by nearly all programs on the system. This package includes shared versions of the standard C library and the standard math library, as well as many others." So no wonder you are getting all those problems show up when you try to fix it.

I myself am just a hack, not the cautious type. So I would uninstall both, ignoring all complaints, reboot just to be sure, and then reinstall libc6. That's not necessarily the right answer, that's just what I would do in your shoes.

There are many others on this Forum who know more about this stuff than I do, so let's see if someone else can give better advice.

Jerry

... no I couldn't do it! Cluck, cluck!!

I used synaptic and choose linc6 to uninstall ... it paused for a long while ... then the dreaded message came up saying did I realize that I was about to uninstall ESSENTIAL files which in doing so could render my system unusable!!

KPackage acted a bit different - it just told me about dependencies and offered to uninstall libc6

... The unfortunate thing here is that synapsis will not allow me to do anythingelse before I get rid of the broken packs!

The first thing I would try is to get rid of mailwasher because I think that is what caused your problems to begin with (you probably tried to install an incorrect version of mailwasher).

For the time being I would forget about trying to use Synaptic or Kpackage, try the command line.

Open a terminal, type su and then your root password when it asks for it.

Then enter:
apt-get remove mailwasher

If that successfully removes mailwasher then enter:
apt-get install --fix-broken

I tried to re-install the files in synaptic ... this is what I got:

E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies

When I typed apt-get remove mailwasher it said "you might want to run apt-get -f install ... so I did and I got pretty much the same error message as the one I've just posted ... the one with the held packages.

Does the message from the apt-get install -f list specific package names?

Could you paste the apt-get install response into a post because I'm sure there's more detail than what you've given so far.

Those error messages from synaptic from a couple posts earlier aren't worth much for trying to figure out whats wrong.

Did you purchase mailwasher, or is this something you found in the repositories as a free package?

I'm thinking that your best strategy would be to remove mailwasher entirely and fix the broken packages on your system, then attempt to readdress the issue with mailwasher (which is probably an incorrect dependency identification inside the package itself).

[UPDATE]

I located a package on the mailwasher website, and checked into things like its age and dependencies.

The version of mailwasher that you have is very old, being designed for SimplyMEPIS 3.3-4. It will not work with SimplyMEPIS 6.0 and later.

You will need to contact the program author/vendor to have this issue adequately addressed. (I don't recall seeing many--if any--up to date distributions being supported by the vendor, so you may not have much luck at this.)

Consider installing spamassassin instead.

How's my posting?

Please call: 1-800-DEV-NULL

Hi Kmathern,
here is what happens in Konsole:

apt-get remove mailwasher
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libc6: Depends: tzdata but it is not installable
libc6-dev: Depends: libc6 (= 2.3.6-0ubuntu20.5) but 2.3.6.ds1-13 is to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).
apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... failed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libc6: Depends: tzdata but it is not installable
libc6-dev: Depends: libc6 (= 2.3.6-0ubuntu20.5) but 2.3.6.ds1-13 is installed
mailwasher: Depends: libqt3c102-mt (>= 3:3.3.4) but it is not installable
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies

... and there you have it all. Will she recover doctor?

I bought it from mailwasher.
My problem is I do not seem to be able to remove it ... plus the two other packages seem to be used by everything else so I might not be able to get rid of those either ... unless I want to risk making my system unusuable.

... I could back up everything then reformat the whole thing ... I will need some advise on that (plus the odd glass of wine)

It looks like it still is wanting to install mailwasher or its partially installed.

you might want to try from the su terminal:
dpkg --purge mailwasher

and then post back the results

... can I ask something that might be a bit of a stupid question but ...

Using Konsole I seem to only be able to copy and paste one line at a time ... is this right or is there some way whereby I can copy and paste the whole session?

Here is the dpkg stuff:

dpkg --purge mailwasher
(Reading database ... 82530 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing mailwasher ...
dpkg - warning: while removing mailwasher, directory `/var/lib/menu-xdg/applications/menu-xdg' not empty so not removed.
dpkg - warning: while removing mailwasher, directory `/var/lib/menu-xdg/applications' not empty so not removed.
dpkg - warning: while removing mailwasher, directory `/var/lib/menu-xdg' not empty so not removed.

... Over to you

You should be able to copy as many lines as you need,

Goto where you want to start copying, hold the left mouse button down and then move the cursor (while still holding the button down) to where the text your selecting ends. This should highlight whatever text you are wanting to select. Release the left cursor button. Hover your cursor over the highlighted selected text region and right click your mouse - this brings up a dialog to copy or paste or whatever.

Can you do the apt-get install --fix-broken again

and report results back

by the way

apt-get install --fix-broken

apt-get -f install

apt-get install -f

all do the same thing the -f is the shorthand for --fix-broken
and it can come before or after install

Hi kmathern,

I've done apt get again ... and here it all is:

apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... failed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libc6: Depends: tzdata but it is not installable
libc6-dev: Depends: libc6 (= 2.3.6-0ubuntu20.5) but 2.3.6.ds1-13 is installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies

Interestingly Mailwasher package has now dissapeared leaving libc6 and libc6-dev.

Any ideas as to how I can proceed with these two broken packages? Should I just try and uninstall them?

But my fear is that they might leave the whole system unusable!

Download the following file:
http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/g/glibc/libc6_2.3.6-0ubuntu20.5_i386.deb

Open a terminal session within the folder where you downloaded the file to and su to root.

At that point do the following command:
dpkg -i libc6_2.3.6-0ubuntu20.5_i386.deb

Open a terminal session within the folder where you downloaded the file to and su to root.

I am not sure what that means.
Do I open the folder the file has been put in - then simply open konsole and then do su? Or do Ido something different?

... I've just found in Tools "execute shell command in current directory" ... opened it and found in shell:

/bin/bash: ./Glazam: is a directory

... and it won't let me type anything - but that is what you want the shell to open in isn't it?

I know what I have done is wrong ... but I am learning a lot!

Thats exactly what you do.

Just use konqueror to goto the folder where you downloaded the file to and press the F4 key and it will open up a terminal within that folder. Then do the su & the dpkg command I mentioned earlier.

... and this is what the terminal said:

dpkg -i libc6_2.3.6-0ubuntu20.5_i386.deb
(Reading database ... 82219 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace libc6 2.3.6.ds1-13 (using libc6_2.3.6-0ubuntu20.5_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libc6 ...
dpkg: warning - unable to delete old directory `/etc/ld.so.conf.d': Directory not empty
Setting up libc6 (2.3.6-0ubuntu20.5) ...

Synaptic now tells me there is one broken package:

libssl0.9.7

You can get back into synaptic now, was that a problem before?

Can you give any more detail on that libssl0.9.7 broken package?

How about exiting synaptic and then going back to the command line and doing another apt-get -f install (I like that command because it gives a pretty good description of the broken packages)

... did the -f insta and got this:

apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
libssl0.9.7
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 3 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 5190kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
(Reading database ... 82214 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing libssl0.9.7 ...

Synapsis is now showing me that I can upgrade now.

... So I think you've cracked for me ... thank you very, very much.

I have contacted mailwasher and I am now waiting for them to get back to me. But in the mean time I will use spamassasin ... its just that I think mailwasher is a great program ... I can delete on the server without having to wait for the files to load onto the laptop - then spamassasin seems to take forever to do its thing (I get lots of spam!). If there is anything else I ned to do regsrding the lib stuff then I'm you'll let me know ... for now thanks again kmathern

I don't know if you are still following this thread, if you are I'm glad that your synaptic seems to be working again.

I did some checking around on that mailwasher program you want to install.

On this page here: http://www.firetrust.com/download/mailwasher-pro

I downloaded the version from the drop down list titled "Linux (Kubuntu 6.06)". It installed without any problems.

It seems to run okay - I'm presented with a screen , it says something about a 30 day free trial and also something about entering a registration code.

... I'll have a look at that page ... I've paid already so I have the registration code ... hopefully it will work ... especially after having told them my problems in advance.

We shall see ... thanks

I downloaded the kubuntu version of mailwasher ... not only has it worked - it has also found and applied the original properties that I specified ... so all in all I now have a paid for, working mailwasher ... excellent kmathern!

... Right - what's next!!