handling "broken packages"

[brownh@hartford-hwp.com (Haines Brown)]

I've looked at the APT manual and rummaged about on line, but can't
get a clear idea of just to do with "broken" packages. I get
the impression that the term "broken" implies some unresolvable
dependences, but I'm not sure what to do about it if the depencency is
uninstallable. 

Here's an example. I go to install libqt3-mt-dev. 

  E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages
[The word "held" seems to suggest that the dependency is available, but
it is somehow "broken".]
  E: Unable to correct dependencies, some packages cannot be installed.
  E: Unable to resolve some dependencies!
  ...
  The following packages have unmet dependencies: 
    libqt3-mt-dev: Depends: libqt3-dev (=2:3.0.3-20020329-1) but it is
    not installable.

If I try to install ligqt3-dev, I can't do it because it has
uninstallable dependencies as well. 


Haines Brown