Broken packages and dependancies

[hartzenberg]

Hello.
It appears I have a sick apt database on my "Linux Mint 11 Kataya"

Synaptic tells me I have 1 broken package. When I go to Edit, Fix I just get an error dialog stating:

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An Error occurred
The following details are provided:

E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies

If I then go to Marked Changes It marks some 526 packages for removal, and about 22 for re-installation. After the above "attempt to Fix" the Broken Packages lists 7 packages with a RED icon, (evince, libgconf2-4, libseed0, libstdc++6, yelp, zeitgeist-extension-fts, and libwebkitgtk-1.0-0). It also have a marked-for-removal icon next to libstdc++6.

If I close Synaptic and go to the terminal to run
sudo apt-get -f install, I get the following:

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... failed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libstdc++6 : Depends: gcc-4.6-base (= 4.6.1-9ubuntu3) but it is not installable
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies

And if I follow that by attempting to re-install libstdc++6, I then get

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Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package gcc-4.6-base is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'gcc-4.6-base' has no installation candidate

I am hoping to be able to fix this without a re-install. If all else fails, re-install is not too difficult, the main software that I've installed other than stock Linux mint is Virtualbox, Freemind, bluefish, and geany, plus a few other bits (rdd, various obex things, gammu, p3nfs)

For what it is worth, I've been putting off a full "install all available updates" since I installed Linux Mint about a month ago. Also, I finally decided it is time to move to VirtualBox 4.1 just to be able to get to settings while the VM is running. It is during this upgrade that I started running into these issues.

[remoulder]

marks some 526 packages for removal

This sounds more like you have done something like a dist upgrade or attempted to change the desktop environment? Have any of the packages you installed attempted to do anything like this or remove any of the base ubuntu or mint meta packages?

[hartzenberg]

Nothing I've done should have had this effect.

In the past (while still running Ubuntu) I used to try out different permutations of desktop "softwares". AWN. KDE. Xfce. Cairo Dock. If it has a panel or a dock somewhere, I've probably burned my fingers with it.

But a bit more than a month ago I suffered a hard drive crash. I decided that that was a good time to switch to Mint (I've been hoping for a less memory hungry platform without having to switch to a specifically memory lean build) and have not yet started to play around with software combinations since then: My setup remains in pretty much stock condition at this point. In fact, as I mentioned before I have not even allowed the update manager to update everything yet)

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hartz@hartz-ThinkPad-T61 ~ $ dpkg -l | wc -l
1853
hartz@hartz-ThinkPad-T61 ~ $ 

I don't know how that compares to a "default install" but don't expect it to be vastly different.

[remoulder]

Maybe if you could try to do the update using apt-get in a terminal and copy/paste the marked changes that are flagged back here. Say no to the changes of course.

[hartzenberg]

Maybe if you could try to do the update using apt-get in a terminal and copy/paste the marked changes that are flagged back here. Say no to the changes of course.

Hello remoulder, it doesn't even get that far.

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hartz-ThinkPad-T61 ~ # 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:
 libstdc++6 : Depends: gcc-4.6-base (= 4.6.1-9ubuntu3) but it is not installable
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.
hartz-ThinkPad-T61 ~ # apt-get upgrade -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... failed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libstdc++6 : Depends: gcc-4.6-base (= 4.6.1-9ubuntu3) but it is not installable
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies
hartz-ThinkPad-T61 ~ # apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... failed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libstdc++6 : Depends: gcc-4.6-base (= 4.6.1-9ubuntu3) but it is not installable
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies

Do I need to add a specific sources line to get gcc base? My /etc/apt/sources/list contains the following:

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deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ katya main upstream import
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty-updates main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty-security main restricted universe multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ natty partner
deb http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu natty main
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ natty free non-free

#deb http://archive.removed/ubuntu natty-removed apps
#deb http://archive.removed/ubuntu natty-removed games

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian oneiric contrib

Thanx!

[hartzenberg]

Oh, and how do I check the list of "held" packages?

Thanking you all kindly!

[remoulder]

http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian oneiric contrib

This 'may' be the cause of your problems, you have specified the oneiric repo here but you are actually on natty. Trying to use the later repo may try to pull in different versions of components, hence the unmet dependencies.

how do I check the list of "held" packages?

Possibly the easiest way is

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sudo apt-get install wajig
sudo wajig list-hold

[hartzenberg]

Thanx again remoulder.

Do you perhaps have a method that does not depend on my being able to install and/or update debian packages?

Thanks!