Forgive my ignorance, but I thought the whole point of apt was to automatically solve these kinds of problems.
Code:
root@klinux:/home/knoppix# apt-get install gnome
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  gnome: Depends: gnome-desktop-environment (= 41) but it is not going to be installed
         Depends: gnome-office (= 41) but it is not going to be installed
         Depends: evolution but it is not going to be installed or
                  balsa but it is not going to be installed
         Depends: rhythmbox but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages
root@klinux:/home/knoppix#