Re: Aptitude is broken

[Frank McCormick <debianlist@videotron.ca>]

On 08/08/15 11:16 AM, Joe wrote:
> On Sat, 08 Aug 2015 10:43:49 -0400
> Frank McCormick <debianlist@videotron.ca> wrote:
>
> > I am running Debian Sid and for the past 4 or 5 days I have had to
> > switch from using aptitude to upgrade to using apt-get.
> >
> > This is what I get:
> >
> > root@frank-debian:/home/frank# aptitude
> > aptitude: symbol lookup error: aptitude: undefined symbol:
> > _ZN7cwidget7widgets5pager8set_textERKSsPKc
> > root@frank-debian:/home/frank#
> >
> > There are a bunch of packages being held:
> >
> > The following packages have been kept back:
> >     appstream-index aptitude aptitude-common exiv2
> > gstreamer0.10-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-good libappstream2
> > libexiv2-dev libpcre16-3 libpcre3 libpcre3-dev
> >     libpcre32-3 libsigc++-2.0-dev libtagc0 thunar-media-tags-plugin
> > vlc vlc-nox vlc-plugin-notify
> >     vlc-plugin-samba
> >
> > I imagine this will eventually be resolved but my question is
> > this: is there any danger in switching back and forth from
> > aptitude to apt-get in updating my install.
>
> Not in general, just do an update first before the upgrade. I believe
> they use the same database and cache, they just keep different
> meta-data. My aptitude on Sid is still OK, by the way, both 32 bit and
> 64 bit versions, and indeed both aptitude and apt are on my currently
> non-upgradeable list. I now have more than 150 packages in that state,
> and the upgrade versions of two major packages are terminally buggy on
> amd64. Presumably all will be well one day...

  Good

> You could try purging and reinstalling that particular version of
> aptitude if you're bored, or if apt also breaks. I normally use
> aptitude, but am currently using Synaptic to pick out the few
> upgradeable packages each day.


  I did purge it..but could not reinstall as apt-get wants some
packages upgraded that for some reason it says are held and broken ???


root@frank-debian:/home/frank# apt-get install aptitude
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... 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.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 aptitude : Depends: libcwidget3v5 but it is not going to be installed
            Depends: libsigc++-2.0-0v5 (>= 2.2.0) but it is not going 
to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
root@frank-debian:/home/frank#          ^^^^^^^^^^^^

And that's where it stands.

Thanks



It's not a problem as aptitude didn't run anyway :)
It'll probably be sorted out soon...if not apt-get and apt still work.