Re: locales and coding systems
On Tue, Dec 09, 2003 at 06:50:47AM -0500, Haines Brown wrote:
> $ sudo dpkg-reconfigure locales
> ... locales not fully installed
>
> This may explain why the return from a # locales command does not
> include a character set. So it seems I must reinstall locales to
> define a character set (en_US.UTF-8, for ex.).
>
> $ sudo aptitude install locales
> E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages
> E: Unable to correct dependencies, some packages cannot be installed
> E: Unable to resolve some dependencies!
> The following packages have unmet dependencies
> locals: Depends: glibc-2.2.5-11.5 which is a virtual package
>
> I'm new to debian and so naturally this not entirely clear. What does
> "held" and "broken" mean? What is a "virtual package"? When I run #
> ldd locales, no executable is listed. Should it be?
>
> Suspecting locales needs a different version of glibc, and knowing
> that one can install multiple versions of glibc, I try:
One cannot install multiple versions of glibc, at least not using the
Debian package management system. The "virtual package" bit means that
glibc-2.2.5-11.5 does not exist in its own right, but is a name that
another package claims to "provide": in this case, libc6 version
2.2.5-11.5 provides glibc-2.2.5-11.5. There are technical reasons why
this is useful as a dependency of locales.
What does 'dpkg -l libc6 locales' say?
No, 'ldd locales' should not say anything. There's no such program in
the locales package.
> $ sudo aptitude install glibc=2.2.5
> ...
> Unable to find version "2.2.5" for the package "glibc"
You can't invent version numbers and expect them to work! :) Also, it's
"libc6" rather than "glibc".
> I can't find glibc at all in /lib, and fear the impossible: I simply
> don't have glibc. So run:
>
> $ sudo aptitude install glibc
> ...
> The following packages have been held back: libc6
>
> Again, what does "held back" mean here?
It's apt's notation for "not installing this because of some dependency
problems".
> I've got libc-2.2.5, but can't find libc6. I fear my continuing to
> flounder about like this will do some irreparable damage.
You have libc6 or you wouldn't be able to run the programs you said you
ran looking for it. Stop worrying about that. Chances are that your
versions of libc6 and locales are just a bit out of sync, perhaps due to
a strange /etc/apt/sources.list or an unwise upgrade of parts of your
system to testing or unstable. 'dpkg -l libc6 locales' as requested
above should give more information.
Cheers,
--
Colin Watson [cjwatson@flatline.org.uk]
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