gnome-language-selector won't install language support

[Victor Costan]

Binary package hint: language-selector

I tried to install support for Chinese (simplified and traditional) input methods and extra fonts. When I clicked "Apply Changes", it popped a dialog titled "Software database is broken", saying "It is impossible to install or remove any software. Please use the package manager "Synaptic" or run "sudo apt-get install -f" in a terminal to fix this issue at first".

I've been using this method for installing pinyin input since Ubuntu 9.10, and it worked until now.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.10
Package: language-selector 0.6.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.35-19.28-generic 2.6.35.3
Uname: Linux 2.6.35-19-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia wl
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Sep 6 18:16:52 2010
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.10 "Maverick Meerkat" - Alpha amd64 (20100906)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: language-selector

[Pavol Klačanský (pavolzetor-deactivatedaccount)]

Me too, button for adding language was grayed, I had to install it by synaptic or APT

[Jason Mallet (jasonmallet)]

I have this same problem in Ubuntu 12.04. When I installed 12.04 back in April 2012 it worked fine (as it has for the last several releases stretching back to 2006 when I first started installing multiple languages), but I re-installed 12.04 this past week and had this come up. I am trying to install the Korean, German and Spanish packs.

I tried sudo apt-get install -f.
I tried sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade.
I tried sudo dpkg --configure -a.
I tried sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales.
I looked in Synaptic under "status" and there are no broken packages or thorny issues.
I tried installing each language separately instead of grouping them together.

A thorough google/duckduckgo/ubuntu forums/launchpad search reveals that what I wrote above are the only offered solutions and none of them have worked for me.

I wasn't sure if I had to file a new bug since the OP did his for 10.10 and my bug is in 12.04. If I need to file a new bug because of the different release, please let me know.

[Jason Mallet (jasonmallet)]

I AM A GENIUS.

Ok, I searched in Synaptic for all the language packs, and noticed that language-pack-ko-base (or something like that) had a CONFLICT in its properties dialog box with language-pack-gnome-ko (or something like that) for the Korean (I assume it would be the same with Spanish and German). The only way I figured there would be a version conflict is if I was getting some packages from a more "bleeding-edge" repo, WHICH I WAS.

SOLUTION:

I went to the repos dialog box in Synaptic and unselected "precise-proposed" as a source, did a quick apt-get update and then was easily able to install the packages.

So it's not really a bug, it's just that versions in the repos don't quite match up with each other and there's package version conflict.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

@Jason
Congrats to finding a solution, and thanks for letting us know about it. :) But dependency conflicts are indeed bugs as well. One way to fix it would be to simply remove those language-pack-gnome-ko-base branches in precise-proposed and oneiric-proposed. Or it could be fixed in debian/control.

@Victor and Pavol
Does a solution of the dependency conflict fix it for you as well? Is it possibly time to close the language-selector bug?