hi,
i updated all the Xfree86 packages using synaptic....it went well .....after that i restarted the system......system is working fine.....but whenever i use apt-get to install something it gaves a error message like this....
i think new packages got installed side by side old packages....wat can i do now....any help will be highly appreciated...also how do i find out which version of xfree86 is currently being used....thanx in advance
bakwas

"i think new packages got installed side by side old packages....wat can i do now"

First take a look and see what packages are duplicated. Use this command:
rpm -qa | sort > /root/packages.txt
to create a file which lists all of your package names. Then use an editor or the less command to read /root/packages.txt
and figure out what packages are duplicated. Figure out which version of the duplicate package that you actually want to use. Get a copy of that package's rpm file and keep it handy.

You can then fix the problem by using rpm. When you have a duplicate package name then use this command to get rid of one copy of the package:
rpm --nodeps -e badpackagename
Then issue the same command again to get rid of the second copy of badpackagename. Keep doing that until rpm tells you that badpackagename is not installed. Then install the correct version of that package with:
rpm --force -i /pathname/packagename

See:
man rpm
to see what all of the rpm options that I described actually do.

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

thanx jailbait for your help ....now there are no errors....but can u tell me wat went wrong and why in the first place duplicate packages got installed.....i thought apt will take care of theese things by itself....anyway thanx again fot your help......

"can u tell me wat went wrong and why in the first place duplicate packages got installed.....i thought apt will take care of theese things by itself...."

apt is supposed to take of the dependencies by itself. But all of the automated installers somtimes fail on complicated dependencies. So far, I don't think that any of them, including apt, have reached the point where they are perfect. So when they fail you have to drop down to the lower level logic of command line rpm and straighten out the mess by hand.

___________________________________
Be prepared. Create a LifeBoat CD.
http://users.rcn.com/srstites/LifeBo...home.page.html

Steve Stites

if you notice there's a solution proposed in the error message itself.

"you could run apt-get update to fix this"

I tried it and it solved my problem. I don't know why apt-get can figure out it's problems but the front end synaptic can't. I doubt I'll be using synaptic again.

thanks jailbait
that helped!

i did this once with java, because i became confused by the various methods of installing it, i kept getting that same error message that you have for apt-get but synaptic also told me that i had two or more of the same program

i had java 1.4.2 and 1.5.0 two or three times

i used synaptic to remove them, because it showed up twice, everything came out nice

The above situation arises due the --force switch given with rpm command. But its not too late...

please run the below command as root

apt-get update --fix-broken

This would fix all the broken libraries.

Topaz