hardy is currently uninstallable

[Thorsten Glaser]

The installation aborts with an error message. I had to switch to another virtual console and set LC_ALL=C to get English error messages, so please excuse me for not including logs. Here’s my analysis:

The installation aborts because linux-generic is uninstallable.

root@schulungs-nb6:~# apt-get install linux-generic
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.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  linux-generic: Depends: linux-restricted-modules-generic (= 2.6.24.29.31) but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages

Trying to follow the chain, I end up here:

root@schulungs-nb6:~# apt-get install linux-generic linux-restricted-modules-generic linux-restricted-modules-2.6.24-29-generic nvidia-kernel-common
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Package nvidia-kernel-common 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
E: Package nvidia-kernel-common has no installation candidate

The sources.list file automatically created by d-i is this:

root@schulungs-nb6:~# cat /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://mirror.bonn.tarent.de/mirror/ubuntu hardy main
deb http://mirror.bonn.tarent.de/mirror/ubuntu hardy-updates main
deb http://mirror.bonn.tarent.de/ubuntu hardy-security main

On an installed system:

tglase@tglase:~ $ apt-cache policy nvidia-kernel-common
nvidia-kernel-common:
  Installed: 20051028+1ubuntu8
  Candidate: 20051028+1ubuntu8
  Version table:
 *** 20051028+1ubuntu8 0
        500 http://mirror.bonn.tarent.de hardy/restricted Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

As a DD I highly doubt that the kernel should (is allowed to) depend on a package from restricted (especially if restricted is not yet available at the time of kernel installation, but not just so).

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. While we appreciate the difficulties you are facing, it would appear that the CD image (ISO file) you downloaded could be corrupt. There is an easy way to verify the integrity of the Ubuntu ISO files you download. Could you please visit https://help.ubuntu.com/community/HowToMD5SUM follow the instructions and report back as to whether or not the MD5SUM verified? Thanks in advance

[Thorsten Glaser (mirabilos)]

Thanks but no, that is not a problem – we have a mirror that is nightly updated using debmirror and do a PXE-driven network installation.

Adding a response file (d-i preseed) which enabled the restricted repository works around the bug for me, but the problem is still there (probably a bug in whatever part of the kernel depends on the restricted-modules and nvidia-* stuff).

[Thorsten Glaser (mirabilos)]

Also, the assignment to ubiquity (which I had never heard of prior to today) is definitively wrong.

[Fabio Marconi (fabiomarconi)]

Sorry, I don't read well the report.
Actually i' haven't got the possibility to test a hardy installation and i'm on Natty.
In synaptic I can only see 'nvidia-common' package.
Let me know, probably tomorrow i try to install the alternate.
Ubiquity is the desktop version installer

[Thorsten Glaser (mirabilos)]

Mh. Actually I don’t know which package is at fault here, but I tend towards d-i.

linux-generic depends on linux-image-generic, linux-restricted-modules-generic

linux-restricted-modules-generic is obviously not in main
linux-generic apparently is in restricted for hardy but in main for hardy-updates (this would be a Policy violation in Debian)

d-i installs linux-generic whereas installing linux-image-generic would (at _that_
poing in time during installationi) would be enough.

On the other hand, what I’d _really_ want to know is, why did it stop working,
i.e. what changed? We have been using the network installer for years, and it
only got uninstallable some days ago (can’t exactly pinpoint it because we’re
not installing computers every day).

Most puzzling (to me) is why hardy-updates is used during the installation
process, instead of installing hardy (+hardy-security, if it must be) first,
_then_ writing the final in-target etc/apt/sources.list and dist-upgrading.
But then, I don’t know the inner workings of d-i well (and d-i *is* not being
happily welcomed even in the greater debian community)…

Anyway, like I said, I managed to get the pressing need to install it done
with a workaround (enable restricted early), so this is mostly for curiosity
and possibly other people who run into the problem…