On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 10:21 PM, James Linder <j...@tigger.ws> wrote:
> Hi > I have a customer who has indulged in extreme stupid stuff. > > > root@bol04:/home/stm# dpkg -r x11vnc x11vncdata > > dpkg: warning: there's no installed package matching x11vnc > > dpkg: warning: there's no installed package matching x11vncdata > > but > > The following packages have unmet dependencies: > x11vnc : Depends: x11vnc-data (= 0.9.12-1build1) but 0.9.13-1.1 is to be > installed > E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. > held broken packages? I'm not sure what that means exactly, if it means they were held manually, unhold them I would suggest. I haven't fixed a broken debian package system for a while, but first I would disable any third party sources, then apt-get update. if dpkg --get-selections | grep 'hold$' is blank, then try apt-get -f install also, dpkg remove --force-depends somepackage apt-get -f install force depends to fix a broken system is fine, it's just not fine to use it to install a package on a working system though. (hello red hat of old) > So I want to scrap and rebuild the package database. All my googling says > 'you don't really want to do that' > I do! > all the --set-selections etc options don't do anything for me > > set selections doesn't change any packages immediately, you then have to run something to have the selections acted on, it used to be dselect, I'm not sure what it is today. > Short of suggesting he climb to the top of the tower, dagga clenched > between teeth ... > Is there any sane (telling him to manually edit the status file is not > sane!) way to recover? > you can probably fix it with dpkg and apt commands. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
