Dist upgrade removed KDE, how do I get it back?

[theARE]

Hi, hope someone can help me, I ran apt-get dist-upgrade, and for some reason it totally removed KDE. I've been struggling to get it to reinstall it, but it wont when I type apt-get install kde I get

kde: Depends: kdebase-audiolibs but it is not going to be installed or
kdebase3-audiolibs but it is not installable

neither of the above packages will install. and it refuses to install KDE no matter what I try doing.

I was really happy with my system till this happened, I thought running dist upgrade was suppose to update your system not remove huge chunks of it.

Any help greatly appreciated.

[Stephen]

My fist bit of advice would be whenever you use apt be sure to include the -s option in the line to simulate the action of apt if you are satisfied with the actions that will be preformed then remove the -s and proceed.

That being said the first thing you should try is to get the base kde eg. apt-get -s install kdebase see what that tells you. It will more than likely give you some errors about not being able to install such and such package when this happens apt-cache policy < package_name > to see where the package will be installed from and the version it will more than likely want a package from the unstable sources and testing will be installed. Then you would apt-get -s install < package_name >/unstable to simulate the install of the package if you get more errors check the packages it gives the errors on with the apt-cache policy and try to install them the same way.

Eventually you will get to the point where you will have tracked down the packages that are required and installed them without errors then go back and try the kdebase again see if you still gets errors repeat the process and you will get to the point where kdebase will install with no errors and you will have your system back and you will remember never to use apt without the -s option again.

When the kdebase gets installed you will not have Konqueror or Kmail or programs like that installed so you will have to install them as well. This can be a long and frustrating process but you can get through it eventually as I know too well having fried my system a couple of times when I first started using knoppix.

[edit]
As to the dist-upgrade it will remove packages and install new ones to complete the action you request if you had used just upgrade it would have upgraded your packages that were installed.
[/edit]

[ravenlock]

Just encountered the same problem. I had to install some audiostuff to get things working, and the biggest culprit seemed to be libvorbis. First I installed every dependency of kdebase-audiolibs that I could, and then I was left with the task of finding libvorbis0. A quick google turned up the page at ftp.debian.org and after a little struggling (I had to remove a couple of conflicting vorbis packages), the apt-get install kde continued without a hitch.