problem installing updates
 

how do I fix this?

The following packages have unmet dependencies:


kde-telepathy-minimal: Depends: kde-config-telepathy-accounts (>= 15.04.0) but it is not installed
Depends: telepathy-connection-manager but it is a virtual package
Depends: telepathy-mission-control-5 (>= 1:5.12) but 1:5.16.3-1ubuntu6 is installed


This happened after I recently went from gnome to xfce to kde trying to solve another unrelated problem. Didn't have any issues going to xfce but once I went to kde I ran into this problem. It suggested I try apt-get -f I believe but that gave an error too, so did trying to fix this "kde-telepathy-minimal" broken package from synaptic. Let me know if you need more specifics but many errors all of which leave newbie me clueless. Any ideas? Thanks

At the very least we'd need to know your sources.list, and any .list files under sources.list.d

Thanks

are you referring to these:

deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu xenial partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu xenial partner

deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security main restricted
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security universe
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security multiverse
# deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-security multiverse
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ precise partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ precise partner
deb http://archive.canonical.com/ xenial partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ xenial partner
# deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ xenial partner


I got them from the file I believe you're referring to I found off a quick google search. I am quite newb.


otherwise in another folder I found this:

http://img-cdn.filefactory.com/embed...cfc0lcfa8d.png

Did you make a system backup before you installed KDE? If so, reverting to that would be my advised course of action, followed by installing kubuntu-desktop from the Kubuntu backports PPA. Once you start getting into dependency problems like this it can get complicated to unravel.

Have you tried this:

From the man page:

You have two different releases in your sources.
This is like trying to mix Win7 & Win10 in one install.

Depending on the current level of breakage, best way forward (apart from restoring from a good backup) would be to remove the older one (precise) and try upgrading everything to xenial.

Good spot.

"E: Command line option --fix-broken is not understood in combination with the other options"

maybe I typed it wrong?

thanks. I don't know what precise and xenial are referring to. I installed xfce then kde. What's the relationship if any?

http://releases.ubuntu.com/precise/
http://releases.ubuntu.com/xenial/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Ubuntu_releases

Thanks. I have xenial. That is the latest which is what I installed initially on my system. Just recently I tried installing different ... I don't know what they're called, like launchers, kde, xfce etc. So did I downgrade my system somehow or something? I was only attempting to change the skin if you will.

edit: just checked, I still have 16.0.4, xenial. How do you go about cleaning it up?

Desktop Environment (DE).You followed someone's instructions to add the repo for a much older version of ubuntu (a spectacularly bad idea).
I don't use ubuntu so not sure if kde is in the main repo, but you need to stick to the same release version if adding repo's to your list of sources.Remove anything not xenial, update your package lists ('apt-get update' or such) then 'apt-get dist-upgrade' or such.

I used this guide: http://www.tecmint.com/install-xfce-...comment-869696which didn't work, so someone suggested: "sudo apt install xubuntu-desktop" which worked, then I did "sudo apt install kubuntu-desktop" on my own figuring it would do the same as my previous move but with KDE. At which point did mess things up? I don't know what you mean by main repo. All I am aware of is that I'm attempting to change the desktop environments. Thanks for helping me understand all this.

So I'll go into synaptic and remove what exactly? Everything related to "precise"? Not exactly sure how to go about removing "anything NOT" xenial. Thanks

You want to edit your sources.list to remove the repo's that aren't for xenial.
After updating the package lists, synaptic should show installed packages that aren't available from a currently enabled repo as "obsolete or locally installed" - removing them should be a good idea.