Debian Sid -- Trouble Installing KDE anything even Koffice

Hello,
I currently use Kanotix which is Debian Sid. I have been trying to apt-get a few new programs without success. They seem to be related to KDE. For example I just tried to install koffice and got the following message:

# apt-get install koffice
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
koffice: Depends: karbon but it is not going to be installed
Depends: kchart but it is not going to be installed
Depends: kformula but it is not going to be installed
Depends: kivio but it is not going to be installed
Depends: koshell but it is not going to be installed
Depends: kpresenter but it is not going to be installed
Depends: krita but it is not going to be installed
Depends: kspread but it is not going to be installed
Depends: kugar but it is not going to be installed
Depends: kword but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages

I also tried knoda and got the following message:

# apt-get install knoda
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
knoda: Depends: kdelibs4c2 (>= 4:3.4.2-1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libhk-kdeclasses7 but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages

Is there an easy way to fix this. I did an apt-get install abiword-gnome and there were no problems at all.

Thanks for any help. I've done some searches, but didn't find any relevent information from recent posts at Kanotix, here, or Debian.

mowestusa

did you tried apt-get -f install?

I just tried that for koffice and knoda and I returned the same error messages as above. I've also tried doing another "apt-get update" and "apt-get check", but nothing that I have tried helps.

Any other ideas?

mowestusa

When I upgraded to kde 3.4, I had to do the following:

apt-get -t unstable install kdemultimedia

I don't know why, but installing the "kde" metapackage didin't work but the "kdemultimedia" did. After I did the above, I could upgrade other kde packages like k3b. You could try the above to see if it works. Perhaps someone else here knows why

did you tried apt-get -f install?

I just tried that for koffice and knoda and I returned the same error messages as above

humm, you have to simply enter 'apt-get -f install' and not apt-get -f install koffice or knoda

Sorry that I misunderstood the post about "apt-get -f install". Before I had the chance to fix that I did an "apt-get dist-upgrade" since I hadn't done that since I installed Kanotix.

After doing so I lost X. Following a the instructions on a thread at Kanotix I restored X by wget a new source list, then "apt-get update" then "apt-get install x-window-system-core" which didn't download anything, but reinstalled X and reset up everything.

Now when I try to "apt-get install koffice" I don't get the errors anymore, but it wants to upgrade 125 packages, install 43 new packages, and remove 11. Only 43 megabits more will be used. Does this sound right?

I looked at the list of "following extra packages will be installed" it had a list of lots of programs that I know I have installed already. Is this normal too?

I'm just a little gun shy of following through with the "apt-get" command, I don't want to lose KDE and X again.

Thanks for your help. It is amazing the support Linuxquestions.org offers. Never had this much help with windows.

mowestusa

the important thing is what apt-get wants to remove, can you post it? The rest sounds ok. Be aware that I use debian unstable, and not kanotix. Might not be the same, I never used kanotix, I can't say.

Thanks yanik, you have been very helpful.

Here is the info you requested:

The following packages will be REMOVED:
dbus-qt-1 kdelibs4 libarts1 libfam0c102 libkcal2a libkdepim1 libkexif1 libkipi0 libmimelib1a
libopenexr2 libqt3c102-mt

Does that help?

I understand that you don't have Kanotix, but Kanotix is supposed to be basied purely on Debian Sid, the difference is supposed to be Kano's hardware recognition, and some of his special scripts.

A related question came from all of the "apt-geting" that I have been doing. Often "apt-get" as it sets up things asks if you would like to update some file which is different from the package maintainer's file. Default is "N". I have always gone with the default "N" when doing an "apt-get dist-upgrade". Is that the best thing to do normally. I would imagine that alot of those config files have been edited for my system during the install, and I just wondered if I'm doing the right thing or breaking more things.

I noticed after I did the last "apt-get distro-upgrade" and the fix described above, I get all sorts of errors when Kanotix boots up in the terminal window, but then it opens and everything seems to be working just fine without any slow responses or anything else. Are error messages during boot up normal too on some systems?

Finally, since you are running Debian Sid pure, I've been thinking of going with Debian Testing for seting up a webserver, but being such a newbie and not understanding how to set up hardware I've been hesitent to do so. Does Etch have good hardware recognition? Or is it better to go with Ubuntu or another Debian offshoot for a newbie?

Thanks again for your help. If you could just help me know if it is safe to do a koffice install from the information above I would appreciate it, the other questions are only if you have time.

mowestusa