Bug#263594: cannot uninstall xlibs due to broken speedbar-beta dependency

[Thomas Bushnell BSG <tb@becket.net>]

> root@coffeebreak> apt-get remove --purge xlibs
> Reading Package Lists... Done
> Building Dependency Tree... Done
> 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.
> 
> Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
> the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
> that package should be filed.
> The following information may help to resolve the situation:
> 
> The following packages have unmet dependencies:
>   speedbar-beta: Depends: emacs21 or
>                           emacsen
> E: Broken packages


apt-get is very clever: if you have partially installed packages, it
often tries to complete their installation while doing other work.

What happens if you run "dpkg --purge xlibs"?

Thomas