package libncurses5 5.9-4 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: pre-dependency problem - not installing libncurses5:i386

[Nigel Weedon]

Used the Update Manager to Upgrade from 10.4 LTS to 12.4 LTS
3 warnings were issued during upgrade, but upgrade continued
After upgrade I re-booted.
Multiple errors occured.
1) multiple udevd errors for "Invalid rule" and "unknown key".
I download and burn a 12.4.2 cd image and reboot with the Live CD.
12.4.2 works ok from the Live CD(no issues/warnings/errors), so I know 12.4 will work on my hardware.
After many hours of Google found that the "syntax for udev rules had changed ..."
Fixed with sed -i -e //SYSFS/ATTR/g *.rules
Re-boot
2) X11 initialization failed. udev[373] specified group 'colord' unknown.
3) loadndisdriver: load_driver(364) couldn't load driver netrtuw.
4) The disk drive for / is not ready or present. Press S to Skip or M for manual recovery.
After more hours of searching Google decided to follow a suggested fix and go for an install again.
mount -o remount,rw /
ifconfig eth0 up
dhclient eth0
sudo apt-get install -f
After an hour of install/upgrade scripts I get a window about postgresql-8.4 obsolete!
I press OK and the install stops with a postgresql error.
I install postgres 9.1 and 9.1 client and upgrade 8.4 clusters to 9.1(pg_upgradecluser, pg_dropcluster --stop 9.1 main, etc, etc
I get more errors, so I try to stop/start postgres, which fails
I reboot again just for the hell of it.
Now I'm back at step 4) above.
This time I try a different sequence to try to upgrade again.
sudo apt-get update&&sudo apt-get upgrade
After this completes(no warnings or errors) I sudo shutdown -r now
This time the boot stops with an error "Driver 'pcspkr' is already registered.
More Google seaching and I find a fix: sudo echo 'blacklist snd-pcsp' >> /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist.conf
Re-boot again
PC reboot ok, Ubuntu 12.4 boots and I leave it to check all the drives. It returns no errors.
I then get a clean start of Ubuntu 12.4.
I now think I should check a few things, so I open a PDF document to browse and maybe print.
But as I am browsing the PDF I start getting error windows popping up with "System Error,... do you want to send an error report." So I say hell yes to the next 4 or five errors, which leads me to creating a "Launchpad" account and this bug report.

I don't know what I should do now.
Update to 12.11 as some have said or try to go to a different earlier version of Ubuntu.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you,

Nigel Weedon.

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: libncurses5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-40.64-generic 3.2.40
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-40-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Apr 20 23:44:49 2013
ErrorMessage: ErrorMessage: pre-dependency problem - not installing libncurses5:i386
MarkForUpload: True
SourcePackage: ncurses
Title: package libncurses5 5.9-4 failed to install/upgrade: ErrorMessage: pre-dependency problem - not installing libncurses5:i386
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2013-04-20 (5 days ago)