Comment 3 for bug 1365375

Thanks for taking the time to report this, richud, and especially for providing the attachments.

This bug bit me today, too.

Were you able to implement any sort of a workaround?

This seems like a significant problem to go unfixed since September, 2014.

Here's what happened, in my particular case (impetus was to compile NGINX):

# apt-get install libpcre3-dev zlib1g-dev libssl-dev
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
zlib1g-dev is already the newest version.
zlib1g-dev set to manually installed.
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 gcc-4.8-multilib : Depends: libc6-dev-i386 (>= 2.11) but it is not going to be installed
 lib32z1-dev : Depends: lib32c-dev
 libc6-dev-x32 : Depends: libc6-dev-i386 (= 2.19-0ubuntu6.5) but it is not going to be installed
 libpcre3-dev : Depends: libpcrecpp0 (= 1:8.31-2ubuntu2) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

Okay, so I try "apt-get install -f"...

# apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libc6-dev-i386
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libc6-dev-i386
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 15 not upgraded.
22 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/1,151 kB of archives.
After this operation, 6,337 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
(Reading database ... 137387 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../libc6-dev-i386_2.19-0ubuntu6.5_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking libc6-dev-i386 (2.19-0ubuntu6.5) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6-dev-i386_2.19-0ubuntu6.5_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/include/gnu', which is also in package libc6-dev-amd64 2.19-0ubuntu6.5
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6-dev-i386_2.19-0ubuntu6.5_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

It's a bit difficult to compile anything on this system, without access to these crucial libraries.

Worse, aptitude is now "stuck" in this state, and complains any time I try to modify a package (even unrelated packages). Here's an example:

# apt-get autoremove
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:
 gcc-4.8-multilib : Depends: libc6-dev-i386 (>= 2.11) but it is not installed
 lib32z1-dev : Depends: lib32c-dev
 libc6-dev-x32 : Depends: libc6-dev-i386 (= 2.19-0ubuntu6.5) but it is not installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

Of course, "apt-get install -f" just vomits the same error that I pasted above.

So, I'm stuck in a loop with no way out.

Suggestions, anyone?