apt-get messing up things... urgent help needed

punt · 09-25-2006, 09:48 AM

Help!

I am trying to upgrade ncurses on a machine and keep getting the following error. It's in LiveCD mode right now, but I'm afraid that it won't run when I reboot (and unfortunately it's a remote box):

# apt-get upgrade libncurses5-devel
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
console-tools: Depends: sysvinit (> 2.74) but it is not installed
dpkg: PreDepends: dselect but it is not installed
modutils: Depends: sysvinit (>= 2.71-2) but it is not installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

Here's more (to "resolve the dependencies"):

# apt-get install console-tools dpkg modutils
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
console-tools is already the newest version.
dpkg is already the newest version.
modutils is already the newest version.
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
bsdmainutils: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
console-tools: Depends: sysvinit (> 2.74) but it is not going to be installed
dpkg: PreDepends: dselect but it is not going to be installed
ftp: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
gdb: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
info: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
ispell: Depends: iamerican but it is not going to be installed or
ispell-dictionary
Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.3.20030510-1) but it is not going to be installed
less: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
libreadline4: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
libreadline5: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
mc: Depends: libgpmg1 (>= 1.19.6-1) but it is not going to be installed
modutils: Depends: sysvinit (>= 2.71-2) but it is not going to be installed
nano: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
nvi: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
procps: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
python2.3: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
tcsh: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
telnet: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
util-linux: PreDepends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
w3m: Depends: libgpmg1 (>= 1.19.6-1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

# apt-get upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
console-tools: Depends: sysvinit (> 2.74) but it is not installed
dpkg: PreDepends: dselect but it is not installed
modutils: Depends: sysvinit (>= 2.71-2) but it is not installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.
rescuecd:/# apt-get upgrade -f
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
bash bc ibritish ingerman initrd-tools libgpmg1 mc psmisc w3m
The following NEW packages will be installed:
dselect initscripts sysvinit
WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed
This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
bash
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 9 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
36 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B/940kB of archives.
After unpacking 12.0MB disk space will be freed.
You are about to do something potentially harmful
To continue type in the phrase 'Yes, do as I say!'
?] Yes, do as I say!
E: Sub-process /usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt || true returned an error code (100)
E: Failure running script /usr/sbin/dpkg-preconfigure --apt || true

What do I do?!

MassDosage · 09-25-2006, 09:58 AM

What if you try install the package it's missing first? Like

apt-get install sysvinit

And if that goes ok, then re-try your upgrade?

punt · 09-25-2006, 10:04 AM

No go:

# apt-get install sysvinit
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
bsdmainutils: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
dpkg: PreDepends: dselect but it is not going to be installed
ftp: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
gdb: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
info: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
ispell: Depends: iamerican but it is not going to be installed or
ispell-dictionary
Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.3.20030510-1) but it is not going to be installed
less: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
libreadline4: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
libreadline5: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
mc: Depends: libgpmg1 (>= 1.19.6-1) but it is not going to be installed
nano: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
nvi: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
procps: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
python2.3: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
sysvinit: PreDepends: initscripts but it is not going to be installed
tcsh: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
telnet: Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
util-linux: PreDepends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
w3m: Depends: libgpmg1 (>= 1.19.6-1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libncurses5 (>= 5.4-1) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

punt · 09-25-2006, 10:08 AM

Wait, the order *was* important...

So that worked. But the problem is that I'm trying to compile a script that requires ncurses, and libncurses5 and libncurses5-dev is installed, but I keep getting the following error:
[*] Creating Menu, please wait.
This needs the ncurses library. If it is not available, menuconf wont work. If you are using curses, use make menuconfig-curses instead.

The same app gives me the following error:

SSL-Support: No openssl found. Get openssl at www.openssl.org

And openssl is installed both via source and apt... I've uninstalled and reinstalled as well, but no go.

farslayer · 09-25-2006, 08:25 PM

you did do an apt-get update before the apt-get upgrade right ? if you didn't update and it's using an old cached list of packages things may not mesh because the specific version packages it's looking for may no longer be in the repos..

Also are you mixing different version of the repositories in your /etc/apt/sources.list file ? please post it..
cat /etc/apt/sources.list

you can also look at the versions of the installed packages on your system with apt-cache policy <packagename> to see exactly what versions of the packages are installed on your system and if there is an update and what version the update is..

i.e.

Code:

default@debian:/usr/local$ apt-cache policy libncurses5
libncurses5:
  Installed: 5.5-2
  Candidate: 5.5-3
  Version table:
     5.5-3 0
        500 ftp://mirrors.kernel.org sid/main Packages
 *** 5.5-2 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status


default@debian:/usr/local$ apt-cache policy libgpmg1
libgpmg1:
  Installed: 1.19.6-22
  Candidate: 1.19.6-22
  Version table:
 *** 1.19.6-22 0
        500 ftp://mirrors.kernel.org sid/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status


default@debian:/usr/local$ apt-cache policy openssl
openssl:
  Installed: 0.9.8b-2
  Candidate: 0.9.8c-1
  Version table:
     0.9.8c-1 0
        500 ftp://mirrors.kernel.org sid/main Packages
 *** 0.9.8b-2 0
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

apt-get clean
apt-get autoclean
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

punt · 09-25-2006, 09:29 PM

farslayer: box is down pending LiveCD removal, and I'll see what I can get when the machine is back up. Unfortunately for me, it's not a local box.

punt · 09-27-2006, 07:20 AM

Well, back to RescueCD mode it went.... machine didn't come up cleanly, and since it's remote, I never saw the error message.

Code:

rescuecd:/# cat /etc/apt/sources.list 
#deb file:///cdrom/ sarge main

deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ stable main
deb-src http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ stable main

deb http://security.debian.org/ stable/updates main

apt-cache policy is showing everything as up-to-date.

punt · 09-27-2006, 09:25 AM

Still says that SSL and ncurses is not installed.

Code:

$ apt-cache policy libncurses5
libncurses5:
  Installed: 5.4-4
  Candidate: 5.4-4
  Version Table:
 *** 5.4-4 0
        500 http://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

$ apt-cache policy openssl
openssl:
  Installed: 0.9.7e-3sarge2
  Candidate: 0.9.7e-3sarge2
  Version Table:
 *** 0.9.7e-3sarge2 0
        500 http://security.debian.org stable/updates/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.9.7e-3sarge1 0
        500 http://ftp.de.debian.org stable/main Packages

Anything else I can do?

punt · 09-27-2006, 06:39 PM

bump for the daring.