Unable to install gnome-shell-dbg package due to dependency issue

[Wise Melon]

I need to do some debugging work with gnome-shell, so I have tried to install the debugging symbols with:

    sudo apt-get install gnome-shell-dbg

However I have been met with this error:

    Reading package lists... Done
    Building dependency tree
    Reading state information... 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.
    The following information may help to resolve the situation:

    The following packages have unmet dependencies.
     gnome-shell-dbg : Depends: gnome-shell (= 3.20.2-0ubuntu1~xenial1) but 3.20.2-1ubuntu1~xenial1 is to be installed
                       Recommends: mutter-dbg but it is not going to be installed
    E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I am running Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 with GNOME 3.20, I am reporting this here as I assume this has something to do with the versions etc of the packages in the gnome3-staging PPA from which I am getting 3.20 from. If I am wrong, please correct me.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Add this line to your sources:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3-staging/ubuntu xenial main/debug

and then install gnome-shell-dbgsym. You'll also need to install -dbgsym or -dbg for gnome-shell's dependencies too.

For more information, see https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Debug%20Symbol%20Packages

Go ahead and keep this bug open since gnome-shell should be using dh_strip --dbgsym-migration so that gnome-shell-dbg won't have the installability problem you found.

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

fixed in gnome-shell 3.20.3-1ubuntu1~xenial1