apt-get ERROR - Dependency on some other packeges

[stefan741]

Hey,

I installed Knoppix 3.3 on my HD. As a Debian-Like System.

I tryed to install several packeges. But allways, when there is some dependecy of a nother packege, with is not installed, apt-get tells me, it can not continue with the installation, because the other packege should not be installed.

e.g. Mplayer can not be installed because of libavcodec1.
and XFce4 not because of some other packeges.

Does someone has any clue, what that might be?

thx,
Stefan

[Stephen]

Hey,

I installed Knoppix 3.3 on my HD. As a Debian-Like System.

I tryed to install several packeges. But allways, when there is some dependecy of a nother packege, with is not installed, apt-get tells me, it can not continue with the installation, because the other packege should not be installed.

e.g. Mplayer can not be installed because of libavcodec1.
and XFce4 not because of some other packeges.

Does someone has any clue, what that might be?

thx,
Stefan

You have to track down the offending package that can not be installed or the other package it depends upon that is not being installed at the correct version and install that. I would normally start by looking at the output of the warning it tells you what version is to be installed and you will need to have some other version for it to install properly so use apt-cache policy package_name to see where it is coming from:


>$ apt-cache policy libavcodec1
libavcodec1:
Installed: 1:0.4.8-sarge0.0
Candidate: 1:0.4.8-sarge0.0
Version Table:
*** 1:0.4.8-sarge0.0 0
990 http://marillat.free.fr testing/main Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
1:0.4.8-0.0 0
600 http://marillat.free.fr unstable/main Packages

Then in this case if it wanted the version that was in unstable instead of the installed version that I have from testing I would apt-get -s install libavcodec1/unstable or apt-get -s install -t unstable libavcodec1 if things look goood then remove the -s to actually install if it gives you a warning that it needs another package(s) off such version the use the apt-cache policy on them to find out where you need it from and try to install it at the same time on the same command line because both packages you need will most likely be coming from the same branch if any other problems repeat until you get a clean install of the packages.

[usbrit]

This might help, I was having similar problems:

http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6552

usbrit

[stefan741]

Thx 'usbrit'. but it changed nothing :(

But I tried also what Stephen advised me.
Problem now, when i try to 'apt-get -s install libvorbis0' - apt-get is about to uninstall the whole KDesktop

Why the f... is that?

[Stephen]

Thx 'usbrit'. but it changed nothing :(

But I tried also what Stephen advised me.
Problem now, when i try to 'apt-get -s install libvorbis0' - apt-get is about to uninstall the whole KDesktop

Why the f... is that?

You are trying to install the wrong package libvorbis0 is in stable:


HappyTux:/home/stephen# apt-cache policy libvorbis0
libvorbis0:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 1.0rc3-1
Version Table:
1.0rc3-1 0
500 http://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main Packages
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

So apt is trying to downgrade your install can you post the entire output of the apt-get -s install mplayer-??? replace the ??? with which every version you are trying to install so that I can see what it is trying to do. When you get warnings like you are getting it is best to use the apt-cache policy on the package every time it happens to see where apt is trying to get the package from and obvisiously you do not want to try to install packages from stable it will downgrade your install every time.

[stefan741]

Hey Stephan,

OK. Now it works. I changed in the source.list from stable to testing.

#mplayer
#deb http://marillat.free.fr/ stable main
deb http://marillat.free.fr/ testing main

apt-get installed it at once.

BUT, how dow I know, when to use what? Sorry, but I'm a debian newbie.

Thx!
Stefan

[Stephen]

Hey Stephan,

OK. Now it works. I changed in the source.list from stable to testing.

#mplayer
#deb http://marillat.free.fr/ stable main
deb http://marillat.free.fr/ testing main

apt-get installed it at once.

BUT, how dow I know, when to use what? Sorry, but I'm a debian newbie.

Thx!
Stefan

You always want packages from the testing/unstable branches otherwise as you have seen apt will try to downgrade the install. Knoppix is using what is called apt pinning which in effect tells the packaging system that I want my programs installed from this branch (testing in this case) of the archives and allows you to pull in packages from another branch (unstable or experimental for the brave) if there are no conflicts with the packages already installed from the default (testing).

Some links below I would suggest going to the Debian mailing lists and at a minimum subscribing to the Debian security announce list to get updates on security problems with packages you may have installed. And as always any error you get you should cut'n'paste into your favorite search engine and start reading the soultion to the problem is usually there I put Debian on to the end of the error to narrow the results.

http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-apt-get.en.html
http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/
http://www.apt-get.org/main/