Multiple issues including: "Previous Installation hasn't been completed"
 

I'm a newbie, but will post this here since it mentions specific software programs. Obviously, if I'm posting to the wrong forum topic, please move this!

Trying to view linked items in firefox (sometimes media, sometimes other things, sometimes just loading pages which i believe have embedded elements) results in an error which doesn't include links or suggestions or even a complete error code.

I can't remember in which app, but not firefox, I was getting an error that included a file or app or utility which wasn't installed which began with gt or possibly gtk.

Going to ubuntu software center and searching for "gtk..." or trying to install media playing software such as GnomePlayer, I get the following error:

Previous Installation hasn't been completed. The installation could have failed because of an error in the corresponding software package or it was cancelled in an unfriendly way. You have to repair this before you can install or remove any further software.

As a newbie, this is meaningless to me without some kind of indication of what to do next. I get this error for basically every installable option in the software center that might fix the issue of not being able to view/subscribe/download media. (eg, Gnome Mplayer, DVD::rip, Avidemux gtk+, pulse audio device chooser, gftp, bluetooth manager, geany, miro, gtkpod... the list is seemingly infinite)

"media" to me is embedded audio or video such as youtube clips or podcasts or what have you.

Hi,

Gtk stands for the Gnome Tool Kit (originally the Gimp Tool Kit, but has since been taken over by the Gnome foundation...) - i.e. it's the User Interface library used by many, many applications so mentioning GTK+ doesn't narrow things down a whole lot :)

Though one thing you can try, is at the Terminal, run 'sudo apt-get install -f libgnome2-0'

This is trying to install the Gnome 2 libraries (which are almost guaranteed to already be installed) but it should hopefully fix any broken dependencies and get the System into a happy state.

Also, to install generic software such as gtk, you don't want to use the Software Center. Open System->Administration->Synaptic Package Manager and search through there. Also, if it's media on webpages that doesn't "just work" in firefox, it's probably Flash based, in which case you'll need to search in synaptic for either adobe-flashplugin or gnash. gnash is a "Richard Stallman Free" implementation of Flash. It can do most things (though not all :( ) which require flash, but it does give you a warm fuzzy feeling of not relying on proprietary closed source software!

HTH,
Michael

Trying...
 

Gnash, it says in ubuntu software center, is already installed.

When I opened terminal and entered 'sudo apt-get install -f libgnome2-0'
The responseI received was 'Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
libgnome2-0 is already the newest version.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.'

Going back to youtube and trying to play a video there, I get a black screen with the unenlightening error "An error occurred. Please try again later." Which is at least different than it was before (where I got "error" as black text on yellow background over a black video window followed by a long string of alphanumeric ascii text which gave no insight and did not wordwrap around the screen so if there was something meaningful it wouldn't matter anyway cause you'd only have part of it.)

I understand that I'm not giving a whole lot of helpful information. Only, I'm not exactly getting a lot of information, either, and dont' know my way around linux enough to guess at what would be helpful.

This is the first I've heard of the synaptic package manager, and to tell the truth I'm not sure what I would search for in there, or even if I'd be able to tell if I'd found it.

Gnash is, sadly, not able to do all that what Adobe Flashplayer can do. Sometimes problems arise if there are more than one flashplugin installed, for example gnash and the Adobe Flashplayer. I would try to do, in a terminal: This will completely remove gnash and will install the Adobe Flashplayer. Be sure to close all browser windows before you try Youtube or similar things.

The Synaptic Package Manager is a truly wonderful thing! It has nearly all the software you will ever need in one handy, searchable repository. Open it up and have a browse. The description is usually enough to tell if that's what you're looking for. So, if you were to say, search for Flash Plugin then you get a list of about 20 or so matches.

As an aside (and I forgot I had this enabled myself) if you travel to the adobe website, you can click a link to automagically install flash on Ubuntu 10.04. I think at one stage it asks you which program you should open the link with, but clicking cancel gets the desired result. It's quite nifty!

but the sudo apt-get install flashplugin-nonfree thing will also work... ;)

So in summation, The Software Center is good if you don't know what you're looking for and want "A text editor" but Synaptic is better if you want to install "Emacs"

Michael

Resolved!
 

Thank you, TobiSGD. Removing Gnash and installing Adobe Flashplayer seems to haved solved the problem of not being able to view videos on YouTube. Solved!

Thank you Michael. Truth be told I did my deinstall of gnash and install of flash your way (Synaptic for removal, adobe website for installation) because although the terminal method is perhaps more elegant, I need to work on developing a warm fuzzy feeling for doing things that way.

Thanks for your help, everyone!