What To Do When apt-get Fails

Bruce Byfield of Linux.com writes:

When you install an application package in a Debian-based system, sometimes prerequisite application packages are unavailable. These missing packages are known as broken dependencies. Left unresolved, they can cripple your system’s ability to install new packages. They’re a disaster that isn’t supposed to happen in Debian, thanks to the Advanced Packaging Tool (APT) and the scripts contained in Debian packages. That makes broken dependencies all the more devastating when they happen. Some users have even been known to reinstall the whole operating system, despairing of otherwise having a functioning package management system. However, depending on how the broken dependencies arose, you have several options to try before you consider reinstalling.

Package management in Debian-based distributions centers on apt-get, a utility with a high-level set of functions for package management. Normally, for Debian users, apt-get interacts with four online repositories — experimental, unstable, testing, and stable — as listed in each user’s /etc/apt/sources.list file. (The repositories may differ for users of some Debian-derived distributions.) CDs and even local directories can also serve as package sources. Apt-get is supported by a cluster of related utilities, including apt-cache, apt-config, and apt-listchanges.

Apt-get calls on dpkg, the command that actually installs and removes packages. Like apt-get, dpkg is also supported by related utilities, including dpkg-reconfigure and dpkg-deb.

The two commands have several interfaces, including Aptitude, Synaptic, KPackage, Gnome-Apt, and dselect. Several of these interfaces, in particular Aptitude and dselect, include some of the tools you need for recovering from broken dependencies. However, as usually happens when an administrative problem arises on GNU/Linux, you have the widest set of options if you open a terminal while logged in as the root user and type the commands directly.

[Read What To Do When apt-get Fails at Linux.com]

[tags]apt-get,linux.com,bruce byfield,dpkg[/tags]