I'm running Ubuntu Edgy, and I need to install build-essential.
The necessary dependencies that are listed are g++, g++-4.1, and libstc++6-4.1-dev.
I've used apt-get, dpkg, and Ubuntu's package installation program to install build-essential, but with all three, the same problem occurs.

When trying to install g++, the dependencies that are listed for it are g++ and libstc++6-4.1-dev.
So figured i'd install the latter.
when trying to install libstc++6-4.1-dev, the dependencies that are listed for it are libstdc++6-4.1-dev and g++-4.1.
So i figured once again trying to install the latter.
The dependencies that are listed for g++-4.1 are g++-4.1 and libstdc++6-4.1-dev.

It's impossible! it's like i can't install build-essential. The only thing i can think of is that i'm possibly missing a fourth package?? But then wouldn't I know bc when trying to install build-essential, it would have told me about a fourth dependency.

If you've enabled the needed reposities, it should be a quick trick with 'apt-get install build-essentials' or equivalent. That's what I remember doing. Or do you have some versions of packages installed that aren't in the reposities, and thus apt is looking for too new versions (or too old)?