Comment 2 for bug 1653360

I found a way to get around the problem. I look at the Broken/Conflicts packages in /var/log/dist-upgrade/apt.log. One by one, I attempt to remove them from the system using synaptic. If a removal will cause a few other packages to get removed, and those do not include the Ubuntu Desktop, I go ahead and allow them to be removed. I remove a sizable fraction of the problem packages. Then I retry doing the dist-upgrade. Eventually, even though there are some Broken/Conflicts, the dist-upgrade process is willing to go through. Hopefully, important basic packages that I have removed get reinstalled during the upgrade. Seems to have worked AOK.