Ubuntu – Cannot install ia32-libs on ubuntu 14.04 64bit

14.0464-bitadobe-air

I am trying to install Adobe Air, but for this I need to install ia32-libs.

I tried several provided solutions here but none of them actually worked out.

jakub@jakub-home:~/Downloads$ sudo apt-get install ia32-libs
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package ia32-libs 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
However the following packages replace it:
  lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0

E: Package 'ia32-libs' has no installation candidate

jakub@jakub-home:~/Downloads$ sudo apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0
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:
 adobeair : Depends: ia32-libs-gtk but it is not installable or
                     devolo-ia32-libs but it is not installable
 lib32bz2-1.0 : PreDepends: libc6-i386 (>= 2.9-18) but it is not going to be installed
 lib32ncurses5 : Depends: lib32tinfo5 (= 5.9+20140118-1ubuntu1) but it is not going to be installed
                 Depends: libc6-i386 (>= 2.4) but it is not going to be installed
 lib32z1 : Depends: libc6-i386 (>= 2.4) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

I tried several solutions found here, just one example from here:

jakub@jakub-home:~/Downloads$ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

...
Ign http://linux.dropbox.com trusty/main Translation-en_US         
Ign http://linux.dropbox.com trusty/main Translation-en
Fetched 316 B in 3s (84 B/s)                   
Reading package lists... Done
W: GPG error: http://ppa.launchpad.net trusty Release: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not available: NO_PUBKEY C2518248EEA14886
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package ia32-libs 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
However the following packages replace it:
  lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0

E: Package 'ia32-libs' has no installation candidate

There has to be some fundamental problem here. Can someone help me to figure it out?

UPDATE:

jakub@jakub-home:~/Downloads$ sudo apt-get install lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0
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:
 adobeair:i386 : Depends: libgtk2.0-0:i386 (>= 2.6) but it is not going to be installed
                 Depends: libnss3:i386 but it is not going to be installed
                 Depends: libxaw7:i386 but it is not going to be installed
 lib32bz2-1.0 : PreDepends: libc6-i386 (>= 2.9-18) but it is not going to be installed
 lib32ncurses5 : Depends: lib32tinfo5 (= 5.9+20140118-1ubuntu1) but it is not going to be installed
                 Depends: libc6-i386 (>= 2.4) but it is not going to be installed
 lib32z1 : Depends: libc6-i386 (>= 2.4) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

Best Answer

The ia32-libs package has not been available since Ubuntu introduced multiarch. The libraries mentioned in the message, lib32z1 lib32ncurses5 lib32bz2-1.0, will fully replace any functionality needed by ia32-libs. If a package specifically depends on the library, it will have to be repackaged.

Adobe Air was never repackaged for multiarch. You may try to find a working package or install from an old repository, but that's at your own risk.

See also:

ia32-libs package not found intalling Adobe Air

What happened to the ia32-libs package?

How can I install Adobe AIR?

Related Question