Package Management System is Broken

Ashex · 06-08-2006, 01:33 PM

Hey Guys,

I recently installed Kubuntu 6.06 to my desktop and everything has been working great for me.
Well, sort of.
I wanted to install all the common neccessities to my box so I went and got Automatix. Before you scream idiot, I didn't realize that Automatix was so...intrusive?
Well, I went ahead and used it and got a few things in there, unfortunately I was still missing a few apps I wanted, and a friend recommended I use a different installer (the name escapes me) and I went ahead and used that.
I managed to get everything I wanted and everything was all hunky dory.

I rebooted and I found myself with a problem. I couldn't install packages with apt, aptitude, or any other package manager.
I've narrowed it down to the package sun-java5-bin that is causing all the problems. However I can't figure out how to remove it!

I tried a apt-get remove but that didn't work

Code:

root@Phorin:~# apt-get remove sun-java5-bin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: The package sun-java5-bin needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it.
root@Phorin:~#

I tried using aptitude to reinstall it

Code:

root@Phorin:~# aptitude reinstall sun-java5-bin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Building tag database... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
  kde-guidance libglib2.0-0 libglib2.0-dev zenity
The following packages will be REINSTALLED:
  sun-java5-bin
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 4 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B of archives. After unpacking 0B will be used.
Writing extended state information... Error!
E: I wasn't able to locate a file for the sun-java5-bin package. This might mean you need to manually fix this package. (due to missing arch)
E: Couldn't lock list directory..are you root?
root@Phorin:~#

I even tried a dpkg --purge

Code:

root@Phorin:~# dpkg --purge sun-java5-bin
dpkg: error processing sun-java5-bin (--purge):
 Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should
 reinstall it before attempting a removal.
Errors were encountered while processing:
 sun-java5-bin
root@Phorin:~#

I asked #kubuntu on freenode about it, and all they recommended was a dpkg-reconfigure -a, which didn't solve this problem.

I can't install or remove packages, and I'm pretty sure it's this package that is the root of all my problems.
Any ideas?

brianthegreat · 06-08-2006, 01:42 PM

If you issue a

sudo apt-get update

What happens:

There should be an error posted regarding the output of the command.

Run that command and that should fix apt-get or your package manager.

Please post your results considering the sudo apt-get update command.

Ashex · 06-08-2006, 02:43 PM

I've already tried that a few times, this is what happens when I do:

Code:

root@Phorin:/home/ahmed/Downloads/hplip-0.9.11# apt-get update
Get:1 http://security.ubuntu.com dapper-security Release.gpg [189B]
Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper Release.gpg [189B]
Get:3 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-updates Release.gpg [189B]
Get:4 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports Release.gpg [189B]
Get:5 http://security.ubuntu.com dapper-security Release [23.4kB]
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper Release
Get:6 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-updates Release [27.0kB]
Get:7 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports Release [19.6kB]
Get:8 http://security.ubuntu.com dapper-security/main Packages [2616B]
Get:9 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper/main Packages [619kB]
Get:10 http://security.ubuntu.com dapper-security/restricted Packages [14B]
Get:11 http://security.ubuntu.com dapper-security/main Sources [1015B]
Get:12 http://security.ubuntu.com dapper-security/restricted Sources [14B]
Get:13 http://security.ubuntu.com dapper-security/universe Packages [868B]
Get:14 http://security.ubuntu.com dapper-security/universe Sources [14B]
Get:15 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper/restricted Packages [4571B]
Hit http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper/main Sources
Get:16 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper/restricted Sources [1478B]
Get:17 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-updates/main Packages [10.2kB]
Get:18 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-updates/restricted Packages [14B]
Get:19 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-updates/main Sources [5153B]
Get:20 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-updates/restricted Sources [14B]
Get:21 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports/main Packages [14B]
Get:22 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports/restricted Packages [14B]
Get:23 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports/universe Packages [14B]
Get:24 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports/multiverse Packages [14B]
Get:25 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports/main Sources [14B]
Get:26 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports/restricted Sources [14B]
Get:27 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports/universe Sources [14B]
Get:28 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com dapper-backports/multiverse Sources [14B]
Fetched 716kB in 3s (182kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
root@Phorin:/home/ahmed/Downloads/hplip-0.9.11# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
E: The package sun-java5-bin needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it.
root@Phorin:/home/ahmed/Downloads/hplip-0.9.11#

Ashex · 06-09-2006, 12:40 AM

Well, it appears as though the problem was solved.

Apparently when automatix installed the java, it didn't actually install it. So while the package system had it marked as installed, nothing was installed. And for some reason this broke it.
The primary reason it didn't isntall was because it didn't have the repositories for the package. So I added the additional multiverse to all the dapper repositories in my sources list, and Everything updated!