Depency Hell

[qemqemqem]

I think I am having "dependency hell". I don't know how to resolve it, although I think the answer must be simple.

I need to install package "gnome". But I get this error

gnome: Depends: epiphany-extensions but it is not going to be installed

Installing epiphany-extensions uninstalls swfdec-mozilla, so that when I try again to install gnome, I get:

gnome: Depends: swfdec-mozilla but it is not going to be installed

Installing swfdec-mozilla uninstalls epiphany-extensions.

I am using Gnome on Lucid, although this problem has existed since Karmic. I can post anything to help diagnose the problem. I've tried using apt-get, dpkg, aptitude, and synaptic, but I have had no luck. Does anyone know of a command that would fix this?

[nothingspecial]

I don`t know how to fix this but when I found myself in a similar, albeit, different situation (mine was each package depending on the other).

The solution was to download both .debs from packages.ubuntu.com and doing a

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

Worth a go.

[andre_merzky]

Alas, force-installing both conflicting .deb packages does not help - the package managers still complain when later trying to install gnome. According to 'dpkg -redepends', gnome directly depends on the epiphany-extensions *AND* swfdec-mozilla, which seem not be able to coexist.

I find it very frustrating that kubuntu, as direct derivate of ubuntu, is not able to install gnome... That should have been one of the first regression tests...

If anybody finds a solution to this, which does not include downloading/installing all gnome packages manually, i'd be interested to hear that...

Thanks, A.

[warfacegod]

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

That should get you gnome if anything will.

[QLee]

Edit: Big oops, I didn't check the date of OP and didn't notice that andre_merzky hijacked the thread with a question about Kubuntu, thus my answer to the OP is likely useless.

I think I am having "dependency hell". I don't know how to resolve it, although I think the answer must be simple.

I need to install package "gnome". But I get this error



Installing epiphany-extensions uninstalls swfdec-mozilla, so that when I try again to install gnome, I get:



Installing swfdec-mozilla uninstalls epiphany-extensions.

I am using Gnome on Lucid, although this problem has existed since Karmic. I can post anything to help diagnose the problem. I've tried using apt-get, dpkg, aptitude, and synaptic, but I have had no luck. Does anyone know of a command that would fix this?

I don't follow what you are trying to accomplish. You wrote that you are using GNOME, but stated that you can't install the gnome package. Since the gnome package is a meta package to install standard distribution GNOME desktop environment to Debian and you are already using GNOME it isn't clear to me what purpose for trying that.

However, if you choose one of the available package managers which handles dependencies for you, you should be able to avoid "dependency purgatory" You mentioned that you have tried all those package managers, perhaps it is time to post a step-by-step of the commands you entered and the errors encountered for one of them say, Synaptic, that way someone here may be able to point you in the right direction.

[deertan]

It's a bug reported here...

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...e2/+bug/542404

Which says it's resolved, but it's not, at least not in Ubuntu. That might be a Debian bug report.


I used Synaptics to attempt to install the package "gnome" from KDE, and I get the same dependency problems described by OP.

I can and did install gnome-desktop-environment without problems, but that's just the base install of Gnome I think.

I want to be able to install Gnome with optional components, but cannot from Synaptic due to the following errors...

When attempting to install Gnome I get:


gnome:
Depends: swfdec-mozilla but it is not going to be installed


So I manually install swfdec-mozilla.

Now I try to install Gnome with the following result...


gnome:
Depends: epiphany-extensions but it is not going to be installed


So I manually install epiphany-extensions, which gets me this...


To be removed
swfdec-mozilla

To be installed
epiphany-browser


And if I say Okey Dokey, and then try to install gnome, I get...


gnome:
Depends: swfdec-mozilla but it is not going to be installed


And that's dependency hell.

[phyzome]

It's a bug reported here...

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...e2/+bug/542404

Which says it's resolved, but it's not, at least not in Ubuntu. That might be a Debian bug report.

From the bug thread:

Robert Wall wrote on 2010-05-26:

This bug is fixed in the upstream Debian metapackage, which removed the swfdec depend and added a mozilla-plugin-gnash recommend.

It sounds like a fix has been committed, but not yet released to the repos.

[phyzome]

I grabbed the latest from here:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/lucid/a...:2.28+1ubuntu3

and used this script to alter the .deb:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php...77&postcount=4

I removed the swfdec-mozilla Depends and added the mozilla-plugin-gnash Recommends, as noted in the bug report.

Seems to work.

[Lolpanda]

I have no idae if this will work, and unfortunately I dont have an ubuntu machine around to test to see if that package exists

But try doing gnome-desktop-environment through synpatic, and then doing gnome-extras

Worth a shot if nothing else