Broken packages

**John Jason Jordan** · August 8th, 2014

I recently upgraded Xubuntu 13.10 to 14.04.1 and there were a lot of problems. At first it wouldn't even boot - came up with the grub-rescue prompt. After hours of searching I finally fixed it, but then I discovered that the upgrade removed a ton of my installed apps, up to and including LibreOffice., I have spent most of today trying to get things reinstalled, but now I am stuck with broken packages:

cpp, cpp-4.8, gcc-4.8-base, gcc-4.8-base;ie86, libasan0, libatomic1, libgcc1, libgcc1:386, libgfortran3, liubgomp1, libitml, libquadmath0, libtsan0

If I try to upgrade any of them I get a list of packages that must be removed before they can be upgraded, including dozens of packages. These are packages like Abiword, LibreOffice, and other non-trivial apps. If I try to remove them the list of packages it wants to remove is shorter, but includes things like xorg and xubuntu-desktop. Neither approach sounds like a good idea.

I don't know how to fix this problem. Any suggestions?

**Rex Bouwense** · August 8th, 2014

Have you tried using the Synaptic package Manager? Look in Custom Filters->Broken.

**ian-weisser** · August 8th, 2014

Please show us the complete series of warnings, errors and other complaints.

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

**John Jason Jordan** · August 8th, 2014

Originally Posted by ian-weisser

Please show us the complete series of warnings, errors and other complaints.

Code:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

I truncated the Gets and Hits because I think this is what you are looking for:

Code:

...
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-security/main Translation-en           
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-security/multiverse Translation-en     
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-security/restricted Translation-en     
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty-security/universe Translation-en       
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty/main Translation-en_US                 
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty/multiverse Translation-en_US           
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty/restricted Translation-en_US           
Ign http://us.archive.ubuntu.com trusty/universe Translation-en_US             
Fetched 1,598 kB in 18s (87.0 kB/s)                                            
Reading package lists... Done
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  cpp cpp-4.8 gcc-4.8-base gcc-4.8-base:i386 libasan0 libatomic1 libgcc1
  libgcc1:i386 libgfortran3 libgomp1 libitm1 libquadmath0 libtsan0
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 13 not upgraded.

I hope you or someone has some ideas on how to fix these packages.

**John Jason Jordan** · August 8th, 2014

Originally Posted by Rex Bouwense

Have you tried using the Synaptic package Manager? Look in Custom Filters->Broken.

Yeah, I use Synaptic as my first-line attempt at package management. But thanks for the suggestion because I had never tried the Custom Filters before. Unfortunately, when I looked at Custom Filters > Broken the window was empty.

However, the packages do all appear in the Upgradeable section. It's just that I can't upgrade or remove them without destroying the OS.

**John Jason Jordan** · August 9th, 2014

I have discovered that Synaptic does not actually consider these packages broken. I should probably not titled this thread "Broken packages." In fact Synaptic considers them upgradable. The problem is that I cannot upgrade them without uninstalling most of the programs I have installed, up to and including LibreOffice. Neither can I remove them, because if I do so Synaptic says it must also delete xorg and xubuntu-desktop.

I'm wondering if it's possible to just install the newer version without doing it as an upgrade, and just let the newer version overwrite the old. For example, I have installed cpp 4:4.8.1-2ubuntu3 and the new version is 4.4.8.2-1ubuntu6. Is it possible to get a .deb package of the new version somewhere that I can just install with dpkg?

**ian-weisser** · August 9th, 2014

Originally Posted by John Jason Jordan

I'm wondering if it's possible to just install the newer version without doing it as an upgrade, and just let the newer version overwrite the old. For example, I have installed cpp 4:4.8.1-2ubuntu3 and the new version is 4.4.8.2-1ubuntu6. Is it possible to get a .deb package of the new version somewhere that I can just install with dpkg?

DON'T do that. It will make your problem worse.
The package manager is choking on those upgrades for a reason, not because it enjoys being petulant. We must discover and resolve that problem.

Please show us the complete output from the following command

Code:

sudo apt-get install -f

**kansasnoob** · August 9th, 2014

Since this is about Xubuntu instead of Ubuntu I'm not sure if this bug applies or not:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/tr...t/+bug/1347721

I tried recovering from that to no avail ................. it would seem that I was gaining, but after I'd get one issue resolved another would crop up, followed by another, and another

**John Jason Jordan** · August 9th, 2014

Originally Posted by ian-weisser

Code:

sudo apt-get install -f

Code:

sudo apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 13 not upgraded.

But there is something else that happened just before bedtime last night. I had Synaptic open and I did a Reload. Afterwards all of the packages that it said were upgradable (but that I can't upgrade or remove without creating a disaster), had disappeard from the list of upgradable packages except (listed by package name, current version and latest version):

cpp 4:4.8.1-2ubuntu 4:4.8
.2-1ubuntu6
cpp-4.8 4.8.1-10ubuntu9 4.8.2-19ubuntu1

This morning I ran the install -f command but had to shut down Synaptic to do so. After running the command I reopened Synaptic and all 13 packages listed in my first post here reappeared as upgradable. I reloaded again, but they remain. I have no explanation for why all but the above two disappeared after the reload last night and then reappeared after restarting Synaptic this morning; I mention it only because I'm grasping for any possible clues.

And here is another clue: After the dist-upgrade from 13.10 to 14.04 I was trying applications to make sure they were still working. When I launched Virtualbox it announced that there was a new version and offered to download and do the update. I did so. When I reopened Virtualbox and tried to launch one of my machines I got an error that I needed to run "sudo /etc/init.d/vboxdrv setup." When I did so it failed, producing the following error in the Virtualbox log file:

Code:

/bin/sh: 1: gcc: not found
make[2]: *** [/tmp/vbox.0/linux/SUPDrv-linux.o] Error 127
make[1]: *** [_module_/tmp/vbox.0] Error 2
make: *** [vboxdrv] Error 2

I note that the 13 packages seem to relate mostly to gcc.