Hi,
OK, I recovered from the situation, thanks to assistance of BenNZ on
#debian-next.
I'm normally using aptitude with apt-listbugs to maintain my system. A
couple of months ago, apt-listbugs pinned binutils (as found in
/etc/apt/preferences.d/apt-listbugs):
Explanation: Pinned by apt-listbugs at 2017-08-27 18:08:40 +0200
Explanation: #852035: binutils: bfd stumbles over duplicated symbols
generated by gold
Explanation: #852671: libkf5kipi: FTBFS (linking error)
Explanation: #852672: libqapt: FTBFS (linking error)
Explanation: #852899: libkf5kipi: FTBFS:
libQt5Gui.so.5.7.1:(*IND*+0x0): multiple definition of `__bss_start'
Explanation: #852909: libqapt: FTBFS: libQt5Gui.so.5.7.1:(*IND*+0x0):
multiple definition of `__bss_start'
Package: binutils
Pin: version 2.28-6
Pin-Priority: 30000
This prevented upgrading to gcc-7, amongst others. No problem there, all
was fine.
But last night, when the GNOME shutdown dialog offered me to upgrade the
system before shutting down (as explained in the original report), this
pin apparently caused the depending package to be removed (see the
complete list in the original bug report). There was no interaction; it
just did it. And that got me into this state. I couldn't install gcc,
g++, etc. anymore because of the pinned binutils:
Reading package lists...
Building dependency tree...
Reading state information...
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:
gcc-7 : Depends: binutils (>= 2.29.1) but 2.28-6 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
as:
binutils:
Installed: 2.28-6
Candidate: 2.28-6
Version table:
2.29.1-6 500
500 http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian testing/main amd64 Packages
-1 http://ftp.nl.debian.org/debian unstable/main amd64 Packages
*** 2.28-6 30000
100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
So, to recover, I unpinned binutils (despite that it contains some
severe bugs apparently) and reinstalled the packages. This got me X and
gcc back etc.
So, I'm now still wondering why via this path (which is packagekit, as
far as I understand), all these packages got removed... That's the
reason for this bug report.
--
Grtjs, Manuel
PS: MSX FOR EVER! (Questions? http://faq.msxnet.org/ )
PPS: Visit my homepage at http://manuel.msxnet.org/
