[wellylug] dpkg stuff

[Michael Hudson-Doyle]

Hi,

Well, I don't know what happened, but it seems something has removed
both debconf and libgcc1, and these are Priority: required packages.
>From the Debian Policy manual on Priority
(https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-archive.html#s-priorities):

    required

        Packages which are necessary for the proper functioning of the system
        (usually, this means that dpkg functionality depends on these packages).
        Removing a required package may cause your system to become totally
        broken and you may not even be able to use dpkg to put things back, so
        only do so if you know what you are doing. Systems with only
the required
        packages are probably unusable, but they do have enough functionality to
        allow the sysadmin to boot and install more software.

This at least offers a hint as to why fixing your system has not been
easy... On my system, this rather terrible command:

$ find /var/lib/apt/lists/ -type f | xargs cat | grep "Priority:
required" --before=4 | grep ^Package | sort -u | less

(there must be an easier way?) shows 121 required packages.  I guess
you could go through and see which are missing and restore them, but
reinstalling is probably easier at this stage.

Cheers,
mwh


On 27 March 2014 02:44, E Chalaron <e.chalaron at xtra.co.nz> wrote:
> Hi Hugh, thanks for the mail
>
> Yep I installed some extra stuff for iceweasel, then the all thing turn out
> to be a nightmare
> Removed all iceweasel plugins / debug /whatnot using synaptic
> Now iceweasel is not even working properly ... but that is beside the point
>
> The thing started to get really bad with update for timezone (time data or
> something ?)
> Since then ... that's it, I have been through plenty of googling pointing
> more or less toward the same solutions.
> I think it made it worst trying to apply them.
>
> I can reinstall but a better idea would be to rescue the current OS.
> For say Opensuse has this option but not sure about Debian.
>
> Cheers
> E
>
>
>
>
> What led up to it do you know?
>>
>>
>> On 2014-03-27 15:20, E Chalaron wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi all
>>>
>>>  I managed to get my debian out of control
>>>
>>>  #apt-get upgrade
>>>  Reading 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:
>>>  libc6 : Depends: libgcc1 but it is not installed
>>>  E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.
>>>
>>>  Ok ok will do ...
>>>
>>>  #apt-get -f upgrade
>>>  Reading package lists... Done
>>>  Building dependency tree
>>>  Reading state information... Done
>>>  Correcting dependencies... Done
>>>  The following NEW packages will be installed:
>>>  libgcc1
>>>  0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
>>>  2 not fully installed or removed.
>>>  Need to get 0 B/43.1 kB of archives.
>>>  After this operation, 123 kB of additional disk space will be used.
>>>  Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
>>>  E: CANNOT GET DEBCONF VERSION. IS DEBCONF INSTALLED?
>>>  DEBCONF: APT-EXTRACTTEMPLATES FAILED: NO SUCH FILE OR DIRECTORY
>>>  dpkg: regarding .../libgcc1_1%3a4.7.2-5_amd64.deb containing
>>> libgcc1:amd64, pre-dependency problem:
>>>  libgcc1 pre-depends on multiarch-support
>>>  multiarch-support is unpacked, but has never been configured.
>>>
>>>  dpkg: error processing
>>> /var/cache/apt/archives/libgcc1_1%3a4.7.2-5_amd64.deb (--unpack):
>>>  pre-dependency problem - not installing libgcc1:amd64
>>>  Errors were encountered while processing:
>>>  /var/cache/apt/archives/libgcc1_1%3a4.7.2-5_amd64.deb
>>>  E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
>>>
>>>  Any suggestion where from that ?
>>>  Thanks
>>>  E
>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
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