Cannot open system settings

[Bashing-om]

j88n;

We ain't whooped, No quit in my nature.

See ya then.

[mc4man]

I'd probably take a look at the status for the 3 mentioned packages in /var/lib/dpkg/status directly & see if they were at -
Status: install ok installed
(- setserial, keyboard-configuration, cups
If not, then see if making them such had any effect.. (best to back up that /var/lib/dpkg/status first
If already showing the above then maybe deleting those 3 entries entirely.

Edit : if you have any doubts about doing the above then ask first. Also please backup that file before doing anything, no sense going from very bad to impossible..

Do you happen to have aptitude installed?

[Bashing-om]

@ mc4man; Thanks, outstanding observation as we are sure that some entries in "/var/lib/dpkg/status" are in an inconsistent state.

@j88n; Comply with mc4man's advisements and we will carry on.

a little help

goes a long way

[j88n]

Sorry for the late reply! Thanks @mc4man for joining in to help. I opened /var/lib/status and searched for those three packages. The status is as follows:

-setserial

 
Package: setserial
Status: install ok installed
Priority: extra
Section: comm
Installed-Size: 176
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Version: 2.17-46
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.7), debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0
Conffiles:
 /etc/init.d/setserial 8559d521dedd832b2be120f70cb1706a
 /etc/init.d/etc-setserial 93030e9123cb63db75b2179623c60cf8
 /etc/modutils/setserial cb23d25565eae64f12ef267efd3f42c3
Description: controls configuration of serial ports
 Set and/or report the configuration information associated with
 a serial port. This information includes what I/O port and which IRQ
 a particular serial port is using.
 .
 This version has a completely new approach to configuration, so if you
 have a setup other than the standard ttyS0 and 1, you will have to get
 your hands dirty.
 .
 By default, only COM1-4 are configured by the kernel, using IRQ 3 and 4.
 If you have other serial ports (such as an AST Fourport card), or
 if you have mapped the IRQs differently (perhaps COM3 and 4 to other
 IRQs to allow concurrent access with COM1 and 2) then you must have this
 package.
Original-Maintainer: Debian QA Group <packages@qa.debian.org>

keyboard-configuration

Package: keyboard-configuration
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: utils
Installed-Size: 2172
Maintainer: Ubuntu Installer Team <ubuntu-installer@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: all
Source: console-setup
Version: 1.70ubuntu5
Replaces: console-setup (<< 1.47), console-setup-mini (<< 1.47)
Depends: debconf (>= 1.5.34), upstart-job, liblocale-gettext-perl
Conflicts: console-setup (<< 1.47), console-setup-mini (<< 1.47)
Conffiles:
 /etc/init/console-setup.conf 7fe93d1fb1311225f741b61ebff20942
Description: system-wide keyboard preferences
 This package maintains the keyboard preferences in
 /etc/default/keyboard.  Other packages can use the information
 provided by this package in order to configure the keyboard on the
 console or in X Window.
Original-Maintainer: Debian Install System Team <debian-boot@lists.debian.org>

cups

Package: cups
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: net
Installed-Size: 4193
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Architecture: amd64
Version: 1.5.3-0ubuntu8
Replaces: cupsddk-drivers (<< 1.4.0), ghostscript-cups (<< 9.02~)
Provides: cupsddk-drivers
Depends: libavahi-client3 (>= 0.6.16), libavahi-common3 (>= 0.6.16), libc6 (>= 2.15), libcups2 (>= 1.5.0), libcupscgi1 (>= 1.4.2), libcupsimage2 (>= 1.4.0), libcupsmime1 (>= 1.5.0), libcupsppdc1 (>= 1.4.0), libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.0.2), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1), libgnutls26 (>= 2.12.6.1-0), libgssapi-krb5-2 (>= 1.8+dfsg), libkrb5-3 (>= 1.6.dfsg.2), libldap-2.4-2 (>= 2.4.7), libpam0g (>= 0.99.7.1), libpaper1, libslp1, libstdc++6 (>= 4.1.1), libusb-1.0-0 (>= 2:1.0.9~rc3), debconf (>= 1.2.9) | debconf-2.0, upstart-job, poppler-utils (>= 0.12), procps, ghostscript (>= 9.02~), lsb-base (>= 3), cups-common (>= 1.5.3), cups-client (>= 1.5.3-0ubuntu8), ssl-cert (>= 1.0.11), adduser, bc, cups-ppdc, cups-filters
Pre-Depends: dpkg (>= 1.15.7.2)
Recommends: avahi-daemon, colord, foomatic-filters (>= 4.0), printer-driver-gutenprint, ghostscript-cups (>= 9.02~)
Suggests: cups-bsd, foomatic-db-compressed-ppds | foomatic-db, printer-driver-hpcups, hplip, cups-pdf, udev, smbclient
Breaks: cupsddk-drivers (<< 1.4.0), foomatic-filters (<< 4.0), ghostscript-cups (<< 9.02~)
Conffiles:
 /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.cupsd 5cc210d5438fc12e5f0a4aa50ac9e3df
 /etc/ufw/applications.d/cups 29e98a6d850da251e180c3d68dec2bd3
 /etc/pam.d/cups ff2488324854f7b1e892bb0df062d5f0
 /etc/default/cups 2b436fbb1a32b82b6aba45a76a1d7e40
 /etc/cups/cups-files.conf 2d5c3341837e2dabeaa16cf90582fd6c
 /etc/cups/cupsd.conf bd2b7cffb7cc23734ccee179d2584419
 /etc/cups/snmp.conf 55baa060a50f48f9dbb99c6eb60dc04c
 /etc/cups/cupsd.conf.default 03cc7d46e085b96b9dea5f78cb80d116
 /etc/logrotate.d/cups 5bb41fa9900f0d1c565954405a2bd7c4
 /etc/init/cups.conf 43d2d4234cff969f03c48484e985deed
Description: Common UNIX Printing System(tm) - server
 The Common UNIX Printing System (or CUPS(tm)) is a printing system and
 general replacement for lpd and the like.  It supports the Internet
 Printing Protocol (IPP), and has its own filtering driver model for
 handling various document types.
 .
 This package provides the CUPS scheduler/daemon and related files.
Homepage: http://www.cups.org
Original-Maintainer: Debian CUPS Maintainers <pkg-cups-devel@lists.alioth.debian.org>

[j88n]

Since they look like they are all installed correct, I have run the command:

sudo cp status status.old

to make a copy and am removing those three entries to see what happens.

[Bashing-om]

j88n; Well,

High hopes, but, back to the drawing board.

[j88n]

I just ran "apt-get autoclean"

sean@Sean-Monster:/var/lib/dpkg$ sudo apt-get autocleanReading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done

then "apt-get autoremove" to see what spit out... any ideas?

sean@Sean-Monster:/var/lib/dpkg$ sudo apt-get autoremoveReading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 bluez-cups : Depends: cups but it is not installable
 console-setup : Depends: keyboard-configuration but it is not installable
 hplip : Depends: cups (>= 1.1.20) but it is not installable
 indicator-printers : Depends: cups (>= 1.5) but it is not installable
 lirc : Depends: setserial but it is not installable
 printer-driver-gutenprint : Depends: cups (>= 1.3.0) but it is not installable
 printer-driver-hpcups : Depends: cups but it is not installable
 xserver-xorg-core-lts-raring : Depends: keyboard-configuration but it is not installable
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

[Bashing-om]

j88n; Whohh !

What a web we weave for our self, yeah now we have something to work with.

Get:371 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ quantal/main g++-4.7 amd64 4.7.2-2ubuntu1 [7,966 kB]
xserver-xorg-core-lts-raring : Depends: keyboard-configuration but it is not installable
cups:
Version: 1.5.3-0ubuntu8
hplip : Depends: cups (>= 1.1.20) but it is not installable
indicator-printers : Depends: cups (>= 1.5) but it is not installable

For starters, right off hand I would say we need to uninstall the hp printer driver(s), AND deal with some way to get "xserver-xorg-core-lts" downgraded back to the proper version for quantal.


It is late my time, and my thinking has become impaired, will pick this one up at a later time.

good work !

[j88n]

Okay, good night!

Let me know how I can go about uninstalling the drivers and doing the downgrade.

[mc4man]

downgrading xserver-xorg-core shouldn't be that difficult but keep in mind -

It depends on xserver-common, best to do 2 both at once (xserver-common is an all.deb, -core is arch specific
There are 2 meta packages, xorg & xorg-server, just make sure they don't conflict (shouldn't be an issue, worst case they can be removed
Once you start do not log out, restart or shutdown until you've squared this up or you not *may* be able to log in

What you need can be found here, there 3 sources in quantal, release or updates probably best choices
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xorg-server

Hopefully didn't pick up on any other 'core' packages from raring, may want to first check somehow..

@j88n - You should wait for thoughts/directions from bashing-om,