I'm not sure if we can improve that. The current message is somewhat correct, changing it to "already installed" would be sort of wrong - whether it's installed or not does not matter. What's mattering is that these versions are supposed to remain installed, sort of.
-- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to apt in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1752448 Title: error message for unmet dependencies is misleading Status in apt package in Ubuntu: New Bug description: When trying to install some older packages on a machine with newer packages I get the following message: The following packages have unmet dependencies: libcupsimage2 : Depends: libcups2 (= 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.8) but 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.9 is to be installed libgfortran3 : Depends: gcc-4.8-base (= 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.3) but 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.4 is to be installed E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. The way the message is worded makes it seem like I was trying to install version 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.9 and 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.4 of the above packages. In reality, these were the versions of the packages that were already installed on the machine. This caused a fair bit of confusion when trying to debug the situation. If you could please reword the error message to be correct. Perhaps something along the lines of: The following packages have unmet dependencies: libcupsimage2 : Depends: libcups2 (= 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.8) but 1.7.2-0ubuntu1.9 is already installed libgfortran3 : Depends: gcc-4.8-base (= 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.3) but 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.4 is already installed E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages. Thanks! ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04 Package: apt 1.2.25 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-36.40~16.04.1-generic 4.13.13 Uname: Linux 4.13.0-36-generic x86_64 ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.15 Architecture: amd64 CurrentDesktop: Unity Date: Wed Feb 28 18:14:25 2018 InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-11-03 (117 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20170801) SourcePackage: apt UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apt/+bug/1752448/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp