I am using Debian and I occasionally open synaptic and upgrade everything. The last time I did, it kinda FUBAR'd things. In any case, when I open synaptic it says there is a broken package. If I try to fix it, it wants to remove apt and 422 non-essential packages. If I try to install anything with apt-get it stated that:

So I went and downloaded the .deb package for gcc-4.0-base 4.0.2-4 and figured I'd try to install aptitude and now it says:

Anybody have any suggestions? I'm beyond stumped.

-Knappster

run

apt-get -f install

I should have mentioned that I ran that command before and it listed off all of the stuff it would remove, including apt which it says is essential. Then it says something like you should not do this unless you know exactly what you are doing. If you want to continue type something to the effect of "Yes, I am sure!"

Since I don't know exactly what I'm doing I thought I should probably cancel. Are you saying I should go ahead with it anyway?

-Knappster

Bump.

Anybody know?

-Knappster

perhaps to wait a little while til they get it sorted
read this thread
http://lists.debian.org/debian-relea.../msg00080.html
or ask how to deal with it on debian mailing list

Thanks for the post, but it confused the Hell out of me. If it is just the newer versions of libstdc++6 that are causing problems? Could I download an older one and upgrade other stuff? Since I ran the synaptic upgrade it has pretty much crippled my machine. For sure the sound no longer works and k3b no longer works. There are probably a bunch of other things that aren't working that I haven't discovered yet. Is there anything I can do to temporarily fix that until they solve their libstdc++6 woes? Thanks.

-Knappster

Is there any way to rollback upgrades?

Try this:
In /etc/apt/preferences:

Package: *
Pin: release a=stable
Pin-Priority: 1001

Or testing instead of stable if you want to go back to etch.

Then

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade

But I can't guarantee it'll be perfect. I've had only limited experience downgrading, myself.

Thanks for the post. I just now had time to try it out. First,
/etc/apt/preferences
doesn't exist on my computer.
I went ahead and did the dist-upgrade anyway and it seemed to go ok, except apt-get spits out a message of broken packages all the time now. I went in to synaptic and filtered for the broken packages but it said there aren't any. I'm trying to get k3b up and running again, but when I try to install it in synaptic I get:
k3b:
Depends: k3blibs but it is not going to be installed
Depends: kdelibs4c2a (>=4:3.4.3-1) but it is not installable
Depends: libmusicbrainz4c2a (>=2.1.1) but it is not installable

similar errors when installing with apt. I'm feeling kind of exasperated with the whole situation and I'm thinking about just taking everything back to Windows, because I don't have the time to reinstall all of this and I don't think I will ever resolve these problems.

-Knappster

I don't think k3b is actually installable at the moment from Debian in the Testing distribution. I would recommend compiling it from source.

I will try to look into that. I am also having kernel issues. I cannot seem to get my sound to work. Do you know if there are any fully compatible kernels available, or at least config files, where everything modular and I wouldn't have to customize?

-Knappster

Ouch. I don't know much about kernels. I believe Debian install set up my sound just fine and I've never had to worry about it... sorry.

Mine worked fine at the start (over a year ago), but I've updated the kernel several times since then. Hell, I can't even get gdm to load under the old kernels now, so I'm kind of stuck where I'm at. Why does it have to be so complicated?

-Knappster

Because it has to be complicated to be customisable. xD Sorry. For simplicity, go Windows.