[Gutsy] Last update breaks APT resolver

[Olivier Cortès]

The problem isn't likely to come from Perl, rather from the APT archive. Trying to dist-upgrade this morning result in update-manager saying "E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages ; please report a bug." I've tried to hunt this, but only found this :

sudo apt-get -u dist-upgrade

sudo apt-get -u dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Failed
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  xserver-xorg-input-all: Depends: xserver-xorg-input-evdev but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-input-kbd but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-input-mouse but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-input-synaptics but it is not going to be installed
  xserver-xorg-video-all: Depends: xserver-xorg-video-apm but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-ark but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-ati but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-chips but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-cirrus but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-cyrix but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-dummy but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-fbdev but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-glint but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-i128 but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-i810 but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-intel but it is not going to be installed or
                                   xserver-xorg-video-i810-modesetting but it is not installable or
                                   xserver-xorg-video-intel-modesetting but it is not installable
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-mga but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-neomagic but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-nv but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-rendition but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-s3 but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-s3virge but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-savage but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-sis but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-sisusb but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-tdfx but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-tga but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-trident but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-tseng but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-vesa but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-via but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-voodoo but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-vga but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-v4l but it is not going to be installed
                          Depends: xserver-xorg-video-vmware but it is not going to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

sudo aptitude dist-upgrade

sudo aptitude dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Building tag database... Done
The following packages are BROKEN:
  perl
The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
  gcc-3.4-base lapack3 libg2c0 libsuitesparse lp-solve refblas3
The following NEW packages will be automatically installed:
  o3read
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  o3read
The following packages will be upgraded:
  apparmor apparmor-utils base-files bash bluez-cups bluez-utils command-not-found-data compiz-core compiz-fusion-plugins-extra
  compiz-fusion-plugins-main compiz-gnome compiz-plugins console-tools coreutils dash f-spot fast-user-switch-applet gcc-4.2-base
  gedit gnome-app-install gnome-control-center gnome-power-manager gnome-user-guide gtk2-engines gtk2-engines-pixbuf
  guidance-backends initscripts language-pack-en language-pack-en-base language-pack-gnome-en language-pack-gnome-en-base
  libcairo2 libconsole libdecoration0 libgcc1 libgnome-window-settings1 libgtk2.0-0 libgtk2.0-bin libgtk2.0-common
  libnautilus-extension1 libperl5.8 libstdc++6 libtracker-gtk0 libtrackerclient0 libvolume-id0 libx86-1 nautilus openoffice.org
  openoffice.org-base openoffice.org-calc openoffice.org-common openoffice.org-core openoffice.org-draw openoffice.org-evolution
  openoffice.org-gnome openoffice.org-gtk openoffice.org-help-en-us openoffice.org-help-fr openoffice.org-impress
  openoffice.org-java-common openoffice.org-l10n-common openoffice.org-l10n-en-gb openoffice.org-l10n-en-za openoffice.org-l10n-fr
  openoffice.org-math openoffice.org-officebean openoffice.org-style-human openoffice.org-writer perl-base python-uno sysvutils
  tracker tracker-search-tool ttf-opensymbol udev volumeid xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-nv
80 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 6 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 153MB of archives. After unpacking 12.6MB will be freed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  perl: Depends: perl-modules (>= 5.8.8-7ubuntu3) but 5.8.8-7ubuntu2 is installed.
Resolving dependencies...
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

Keep the following packages at their current version:
libperl5.8 [5.8.8-7ubuntu2 (now)]
perl [5.8.8-7ubuntu2 (now)]
perl-base [5.8.8-7ubuntu2 (now)]

Score is 258

Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?]

-------------------------------------------------------------------

sudo apt-get install perl perl-modules perl-base libperl5.8

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
perl-modules is already the newest version.
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.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  perl: Depends: perl-modules (>= 5.8.8-7ubuntu3) but 5.8.8-7ubuntu2 is to be installed
E: Broken packages

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Attached, my dpkg -l. Reading
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/gutsy-changes/2007-September/009052.html
I see that the incrimined package is a member of a package which seems already uploaded. I've waited more than one hour before reporting this bug, believing that this was just an archive synchronization problem. "apt-get update" updated my packages list 3 times, but nothing comes about perl. What else ?

[Olivier Cortès (olive)]

It seems to be corrected now, perl and all its binary packages just installed flawlessly. Sorry for the false positive. Seems I don't clearly understand how binary packages are handled by archive.ubuntu.com...