I'm running 12.04 64bit on a Thinkpad x120e. While running update manager, I got a "Not all updates can be installed" popup asking to perform a partial upgrade. I went into Synaptic and updated packages one-by-one to find the culprit. I found that the package is the dbus update from the VLC PPA. (attachment included)

My installed version of dbus is 1.4.18-1ubuntu1.4 and the upgrade target version is 1.6.4-1ubuntu4.1~ubuntu12.04.1-ppa1. When I mark the package for upgrade, I get a popup with a message saying the following packages will be removed if I proceed:

libunity-2d-private0
libunity-core-5.0.5
unity
unity-2d
unity-2d-launcher
unity-2d-panel
unity-2d-places
unity-2d-shell
unity-2d-spread
unity-services
(attachment included)

I always cancel the "mark for upgrade" at this point. All of the above listed packages are the most recent version.

Entering sudo apt-get dist-upgrade results in the following

I'm hesitant to proceed with any command that would remove these packages as I'm not sure what would be the end result. At this point, I have about exhausted my Linux knowledge (I am relatively new to Ubuntu).

Googling "ubuntu dbus vlc update" and similar terms hasn't resulted in any hits (Sorry if you find one in 2 seconds. Most likely I don't know exactly which terms to search with).

Any suggestions anyone has would be greatly welcomed. I'm sure that more information will be needed to diagnose the problem, and I'm happy to provide it if you let me know what to get for you. Thanks in advance for having a look.

Attached Thumbnails

   

The first question that I have for you is:

Why do you feel the need to use a PPA version of VLC?

At some point, VLC got uninstalled. I think that's how I re-installed it, if I remember correctly. Looking at it now, I guess I have the developer version of VLC, which I don't necessarily need.

Would uninstalling the VLC version I have and associated PPA, then reinstalling from a stable version be a good idea?

Yes.

I uninstalled VLC, but the reinstall ran into a few snags. I had to use Synaptic to take out a lot of old packages, then re-add them one by one. But long story short, the dbus conflict is gone.

I'm not sure to mark this as solved or not since I didn't resolve the root problem of the conflict, but things are working now with the different VLC package.

The root of the problem was the PPA.