Cannot List Nor Fix Held Broken Packages
 

i attempted to install calibre using synaptic and was informed that i i have held broken packages. i've attempted everything in the below linked thread and the issue is still there. please any other ideas on rectifying this would be great. as for calibre i found a 1 line command on their site for installing it, and it worked perfectly. thanks

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...es-4175510237/

that last oneliner has potential for desaster.
one would need to know what is being executed with root privileges here. we don't know. maybe it installed a botnet on your computer.

but, no matter.

please post every command you used to fix the problem, with its complete output.

that last ONELINER was abd is directly from calibre as i stated, so no botware. but pretty sure you already knew that before making the statement.

Not much info to work with here, can actually post the errors you getting.

ok i get the following when shortly after opening discover. i'm looked at the repositories in discover and synaptic and do not see that.

Is your OS Xubuntu 16.04?

It looks like some repository keys have expired and xUbuntu has reached End of Life on April 21, 2019.

If that is your OS then you need to Install the latest version of Xubuntu because 16.04 is not getting updates anymore...

There might be ways to upgrade to latest Xubuntu without reinstall but i'm not sure

this is exactly why peeps should never disable viewing signatures, cause i have my specs in my signature. no i'm not on xubuntu. i'm running the below listed. like i said i looked for that repository and am not seeing it, which is odd in and of itself.


KDE Neon 64 Bit: Kernel 5.1.0

AMD FX 6300, Asus 970 Gaming/Aura, Samsung 120 Gig 850 EVO, 16Gig DDR3,
USB 3 Card, AOC 29" Ultra Wide 2560x1080. nVidia 750Ti(430 Driver),
SATA 1TB, 750 & 500Gig Drives, USB 3 2TB & 1.5TB Drives

I don't see how you implied that the system in suspect is what you have in the signature. Many people have multiple os's installed and i thought that was the case with you.

Post the outputs of...

^^^
The smoking gun. You have added an xUbuntu 16.04 repository that only has osmc-installer package in it.
I don't know what osmc-installer is or what it does but since 16.04 is not getting any updates anymore I suggest you uninstall it and delete the repository.

Like this...
Then you can try to update again with...
If you need that package, I suggest you find a more up-to-date repository...

looks like that worked like a charm, thanks much appreciated.

EDIT:

yep not getting the one message in the image i posted any more when i run discover, thanks again.

that might very well have been the result of a command like that in post #1.
it obviously wasn't calibre in this case, but it could've been something very similar:
etc.
the point is: you're executing untrusted code without looking at it, straight from the net, with su privileges.
it doesn't need to be malicious to break your system.

similar goes for using the '-y' switch with apt and the like. something which many app developers like to post, because they can then claim that their app is "easy to install, just one command" (no painful reading).

Extremely wise words.

don't need to be lectured. i will say it ONE more time and not mention it again. "the line of code was and is DIRECTLY from calibre." now if you need a definition of directly google is your friend. i do not use code from just any site. i would never do that in windows and i sure as ...... wouldn't do it in linux. i ALWAYS make sure i trust the site.

see, that is windows mentality.
in gnu/linux you install software from repositories, via packet management, and not from websites.
in other words: you trust your distro's package management (and not the site) - like i said: it doesn't have to be malicious to break your system.