Confusing message: You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these.

[Dave Morley]

Binary package hint: apt

I did an apt-get dist-upgrade today and got this

 sudo apt-get dist-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:
  language-support-en: Depends: openoffice.org-l10n-en-us or
                                openoffice.org2-l10n-en-us but it is not installable
  openoffice.org-common: Depends: openoffice.org-l10n-en-us (>= 2.0.3)
  openoffice.org-core: Depends: openoffice.org-common (> 2.0.4~rc2) but 2.0.3-4ubuntu2 is installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

The section "You might want to run 'apt-get -f install'" is misconstrued as the whole command for a newbie. I myself hit this a while back then added 'sudo' to the front and it worked. Is it possible to change this message to include sudo at the front and (package name) at the end so it is a little more informative for newbies?

[Simon Law (sfllaw)]

The error could be confusing to people who don't understand apt-get very well.

But the proposed solution doesn't sound very useful either, especially since this is a dist-upgrade.

[Dave Morley (davmor2)]

I understand that this is not the best solution I just thought it would be more informative than the current version. Also I had this error before I found out about Synaptic and others when I first started using Ubuntu without doing a dist-upgrade, it was just this dist-upgrade that reminded me of the fault. It was also at a point where I was confused by a lot of the error messages that were produced for one reason or another.

I think that the message should definitely display the fact that sudo is required if nothing else though.