[vox-tech] aptitude problems after a couple dist-upgrades

[Troy Arnold]

On Thu, Sep 21, 2006 at 09:34:35AM -0700, Dylan Beaudette wrote:
> 
> now for some new strangeness....
> 
> after one more shot at a dist-upgrade on this machine, i am informed that the 
> nvidia-glx package is broken and will need to be removed if i am to keep xorg 
> installed....
> 
> #aptitude install xserver-xorg
> 
> The following packages are BROKEN:
>   nvidia-glx-dev 
> The following NEW packages will be automatically installed:
>   xkb-data xresprobe xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-input-all 
> xserver-xorg-input-evdev xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse 
> xserver-xorg-input-synaptics xserver-xorg-input-wacom 
>   xserver-xorg-video-all xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark 
> xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus 
> xserver-xorg-video-cyrix xserver-xorg-video-dummy 
>   xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xserver-xorg-video-glint xserver-xorg-video-i128 
> xserver-xorg-video-i740 xserver-xorg-video-i810 xserver-xorg-video-imstt 
> xserver-xorg-video-mga xserver-xorg-video-neomagic 
>   xserver-xorg-video-newport xserver-xorg-video-nsc xserver-xorg-video-nv 
> xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3 xserver-xorg-video-s3virge 
> xserver-xorg-video-savage 
>   xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis 
> xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-tga 
> xserver-xorg-video-trident xserver-xorg-video-tseng 
>   xserver-xorg-video-v4l xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vga 
> xserver-xorg-video-via xserver-xorg-video-vmware xserver-xorg-video-voodoo 
> The following packages will be automatically REMOVED:
>   nvidia-glx 
> 
> 
> note that kde still will not install, and now xorg is borked. not sure what to 
> do now...
> 
> anyone have an idea?

Sometimes, to fix this sort of thing you just have to bite the bullet and
remove the offending packages, adding them back after the fact.  Note that
before doing this you should check two things:
1) the debian-users mailing list for recent related issues which might mean
that the given package is totally uninstallable.
<http://groups.google.com/group/linux.debian.user/>

2) The bug report page for the problem package or associated dependencies.
<http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgreport.cgi?pkg=xserver-xorg;dist=unstable>
(Note that by right clicking in the query field at
http://www.debian.org/Bugs/, you can turn this search into a address field
shortcut in firefox)  This is pretty handy when you're running Sid.

If you're throughput-limited, or for some other reason don't want to
download all those packages again you can prudently use some of the --force
options to dpkg, but you really need to understand what and where the
problem is before you can successfully apply that method.

See dpkg --force-help

good luck!  p.s. Check out Kubuntu.  For years I've been running Debian
Sid/KDE and now I'm totally stoked on Kubuntu.  I don't feel like I've
given up anything except frustration by switching over.  Well, that and
lots of practice fixing packaging problems...

-t