Debian – Unmet dependencies after using a backports repository

aptbackportsdebiandependencies

I have added a backport repository to apt's sources.list to get an application:

deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-backports main

Long story short: I did not manage to install the application properly so I gave up and removed that line from my sources.list.

But since then apt is a mess. For some reasons, gnome has been partially uninstalled in the process (I played with synaptic and aptitude and apparently made a mistake) but I can't reinstall it:

sudo apt-get install gnome

....

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
gnome : Depends: gnome-core (= 1:3.4+7+deb7u1) but it is not going to be installed
     Depends: nautilus-sendto (>= 3.0) but it is not going to be installed
     Depends: gimp (>= 2.8) but it is not going to be installed
     Depends: hamster-applet (>= 2.91.3) but it is not going to be installed
     Depends: gnome-applets (>= 3.4) but it is not going to be installed
     Recommends: browser-plugin-gnash but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I have tried (in many different orders):

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade
apt-get clean
apt-get -f install gnome
apt-get install -f
dpkg --configure -a

but none of these worked.

I have also run sudo dpkg --get-selections | awk '{if ($2 == "hold") print $0;}' to find out more about the held packages but it returns nothing.

EDIT 1 – additional information

$ sudo apt-get -f install

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

$ sudo apt-cache policy gnome-core nautilus-sendto gimp hamster-applet gnome-applets gnome

gnome-core:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1:3.4+7+deb7u1
  Version table:
     1:3.4+7+deb7u1 0
        500 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages
nautilus-sendto:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 3.0.3-2+b1
  Version table:
     3.0.3-2+b1 0
        500 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages
gimp:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2.8.2-2+deb7u1
  Version table:
     2.8.2-2+deb7u1 0
        500 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
hamster-applet:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2.91.3+git20120514.b9fec3e1-1
  Version table:
     2.91.3+git20120514.b9fec3e1-1 0
        500 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages
gnome-applets:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 3.4.1-3
  Version table:
     3.4.1-3 0
        500 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages
gnome:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1:3.4+7+deb7u1
  Version table:
     1:3.4+7+deb7u1 0
        500 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages

EDIT 2 – dpkg-l

~$ sudo dpkg -l gnome-core nautilus-sendto gimp hamster-applet gnome-applets gnome
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                                              Version                       Architecture                  Description
+++-=================================================-=============================-=============================-=======================================================================================================
rc  gimp                                              2.8.2-2+deb7u1                amd64                         The GNU Image Manipulation Program
un  gnome                                             <none>                                                      (no description available)
un  gnome-applets                                     <none>                                                      (no description available)
un  nautilus-sendto                                   <none>                                                      (no description available)
dpkg-query: no packages found matching gnome-core
dpkg-query: no packages found matching hamster-applet

EDIT 3 – apt-get policy

$ sudo apt-cache policy
Package files:
 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     release a=now
 500 http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ wheezy-pgdg/main amd64 Packages
     release o=apt.postgresql.org,a=wheezy-pgdg,n=wheezy-pgdg,l=PostgreSQL for Debian/Ubuntu repository,c=main
     origin apt.postgresql.org
 500 http://www.deb-multimedia.org/ testing/non-free amd64 Packages
     release v=None,o=Unofficial Multimedia Packages,a=testing,n=jessie,l=Unofficial Multimedia Packages,c=non-free
     origin www.deb-multimedia.org
 500 http://www.deb-multimedia.org/ testing/main amd64 Packages
     release v=None,o=Unofficial Multimedia Packages,a=testing,n=jessie,l=Unofficial Multimedia Packages,c=main
     origin www.deb-multimedia.org
 500 http://downloads-distro.mongodb.org/repo/debian-sysvinit/ dist/10gen amd64 Packages
     release v=dist,o=10gen,a=10gen,n=dist,l=10gen,c=10gen
     origin downloads-distro.mongodb.org
 500 http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates/main Translation-en
 500 http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates/main amd64 Packages
     release v=7.0,o=Debian,a=stable,n=wheezy,l=Debian-Security,c=main
     origin security.debian.org
 500 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main Translation-en
 500 http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages
     release v=7.4,o=Debian,a=stable,n=wheezy,l=Debian,c=main
     origin ftp.uk.debian.org
Pinned packages:

Best Answer

After some discussion in chat, it became clear that the problem was that

apt-get install gnome

did not work on an apparently normal wheezy system. The install attempt exited with the errors given in the question.

The culprit turned out to be www.deb-multimedia.org. After removing the deb-multimedia lines from sources.list, the install proceeded successfully.

The problem was not that the deb-multimedia lines were in sources.list, but that the deb-multimedia were not at a lower priority. For anyone reading this, be aware that the deb-multimedia maintainer does not attempt to keep compatibility with Debian, so having those sources available at the same priority as the Debian archive may cause problems. More generally, this is a good defensive measure for any third party repositories which do not pin themselves at a lower priority server-side. Putting the deb-multimedia sources at a low priority like 1 should not cause any problems in normal usage. A stanza like

Package: *
Pin: origin www.deb-multimedia.org
Pin-Priority: 1

in /etc/apt/preferences should suffice.

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Debian – Trouble migrating from Yum to apt-get

About your requirements, Iceweasel is the supported Firefox derivative (fork), I'm currently running debian as my desktop OS at work and use iceweasel every day, no problem. Gnome3, I think it'll be available on the next stable release, BTW what release are you running? Squeeze? If so I think (IIRC) Wheezy will have it. And finally, about graphics performance/quality, that depends a lot on your graphics card and its driver, but if you think of it like having transparencies, windows closing with fancy effects and so on, you'll need a moderm desktop or compiz (work with gnome2) which I think its available on stable (wheeze).

I have modified a bit your sources.list for wheeze, do you mind to test it and report back?

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze contrib non-free main
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze main

deb http://security.debian.org/ squeeze/updates main non-free contrib
deb-src http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ squeeze/updates main

# squeeze-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://mirror.cse.iitk.ac.in/debian/ squeeze-updates main non-free contrib
deb-src http://mirror.cse.iitk.ac.in/debian/ squeeze-updates main non-free contrib

# 3rd party repositories
deb http://packages.dotdeb.org squeeze all
deb-src http://packages.dotdeb.org squeeze all
deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org squeeze main non-free

If you happen to be using wheezy or sid you'll have to change all squeeze ocurrences for the one you're using.

Please, backup your sources.list before replacing it, then test it as follows:

Refresh caches

# apt-get update

Search package

# apt-cache vlc

Install package

# apt-get install <package_name>

If find trouble, please report back with output for those three commands, or at least for the first and last.

Also, if you are already using Wheezy or sid, forget what I said about Gnome3 not being available, it should be there but wheezy is yet to be release and sid is always the development branch.

Debian – Understanding Apt Pinning Priority Restrictions

I don't understand why you are doing here. Why do you have a preferences setting for stable at all if you are running a stable system? As far I know, no preferences setting is necessary for stable in that case.

You don't explicitly say whether you are running a stable system (you really should say so), but if you are not, then I really have no idea what you are doing.

And if the release is on stable, then the usual thing to do for testing and unstable is to set their preferences to less than 100. I usually use 50.

And if you want to downgrade to stable, just do the following (assuming sane settings like the ones above) to downgrade pkgname1 and pkgname2:

apt-get install pkgname1/stable pkgname2/stable

This sets the specified packages to the target release stable.

Incidentally, mixing testing and/or unstable packages with an unstable system is generally a bad idea unless you know what you are doing. Some of the time it is Ok, but most of the time you need to use backports, either from Debian, or self-made.

Best Answer

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Debian – Trouble migrating from Yum to apt-get

Debian – Understanding Apt Pinning Priority Restrictions

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