room topic changed to Installing Brasero removes 100+ packages and impairs internet and display manager: askubuntu.com/questions/670735/… (no tags)

How you were connecting internet physically

cable or wireless

Cable.

run "ifconfig -a" see if you have eth...

Disclaimer: we can go ahead with Q&A session, but if we need to work on the faulty computer I need 15 minutes to rearrange my computers (I share a KMV switch).

So up to you. Open for other context questions now.

i have like 1hour to be here.

Turning off this one 'dialogue computer' now to free the MKV for the faulty one. Next message when I am online again on another 'dialogue computer'

you mean you can't run both?

or you have single cable?

The faulty computer shared same mouse video and keyboard as the dialogue one. Sorted now. I only have difficulties at copy and paste the output from the faulty computer

Answer ifconfig -a: I see two entries eth0 and lo. No obvious evidence of errors and warnings as far as I can understand

good enough you are my eye

sudo dhclient eth0

did you see some IP addresses ?

i don't need outputs.

hello?

no IP address. The output is: RNETLINK answers: file exists

it seems you are connected

Confirmed. I am connected. Not what I expected from the previous experience. Good news though

good.

what you have, try these:

dpkg --print-architecture

dpkg --print-foreign-architectures

answer dpkg --print-architecture: amd64

answer dpkg --print-foreign-architectures: i386

update packages

sudo apt-get update

then try this without installing

done. Several repositories hit successfully

good

sudo apt-get --assume-no install ubuntu-desktop

tell me how much you have here as:

sudo apt-get --assume-no install ubuntu-desktop results in unmet dependencies because I have held broken packages. Namely "ubuntu-desktop : Depends: xorg but it is not going to be installed"

then

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

sudo dpkg --add-architecture amd64

sudo apt-get update

then again

sudo apt-get --assume-no install ubuntu-desktop

unexpected: sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 throws 'unknown option'

ah i missed that you are in 12.04 which didn't have that option yet

confirmed

Does this help? stackoverflow.com/questions/19462579/…

yes

then use:

sudo dpkg --foreign-architecture i386

sudo dpkg --foreign-architecture amd64

sudo apt-get update

unexpected: sudo dpkg --foreign-architecture i386 throws "error: need an action option"

check if you have a file:

grep -ir arch /etc/dpkg/

answer: /etc/dpkg/dpkg.cfg.d/multiarch:foreign-architecture i386

so you already have it

apparently the dpkg command misses an action option not the file

yep, but i couldn't figure which optino from man page

does it make sense to try sudo dpkg --add-architecture amd64 first? else with the option --foreign-architecture amd64?

that is amd64 before i386?

you can try but you will get same errot

i think old dpkg use same actions as packages

confirmed that I get the same error for option --add-architecture. The option --foreign-architecture throws that amd64 cannot be foreign, logically

let look for other way.

do you have aptitude

sudo aptitude

answer sudo aptitude: command not found

sudo apt-get install aptitude

installed. NB Apparently I don't need sudo in recovery mode. i'm already #

ah ok

Upgradable packages 33

Installed packages 2208

Not installed packages 63570

ok

Obsolete and locally created packages 6

etc ect

press / to search

then write

ubuntu-desktop

then enter

then press "n" till you select ubuntu-desktop

NOT ubuntu-desktop:i386

then press +

to select it for installing

then press g once

i'm there

dialogue window appears

"some packages were broken and have been fixed:

Keep the following packages at their current version:

ubuntu-desktop [not installed]

xorg [not installed]

xserver-org [not installed]

Leave the following dependencies unresolved:

xinit recommends xserver-org | xserver

how many solutions do you have , look down [1/..]

lightdm recommends xserver-org"

in red

the red bar was in the previous screen. now i have the dialogue window that wants an OK. what should I do?

ok

how do I go one screen back?

wait

F7

you have seen solutions in the previous screen

not after pressing g

i'm there

red bar content

[1(1)/...] Suggest 3 keeps

e: examine !Apply .:Next ,:Previous

"." for next

red bar

[2(2)/...] Suggest 23 removals, 39 keeps

(same closing line as before)

it seems you too many solutions

that's why you have ...

Apparently there are 16 solutions if I interpret this right.

I hit . until the end and , back to the beginning and I see [1(16)/...] in the red bar

16 that's not too much

go to 1

I'm there

then press e to see what it is trying to do

Done. Same information of the dialogue window I quoted just earlier. Keep ubuntu-desktop, xorg and xserver-org uninstalled plus the rest

then "." to see next solution

ask to remove brasero (the culprit of this all!), google-earth, gvfs, ia32 for 8 packages in total

:), could you check quickly other solution

you may find better then that

Integration: they are more than 16 solutions but after the 3rd they seem to be all the same. the counter of the solution just goes up as I keep on hitting next.

At any rate the 3rd solution is

keep the following package at their current version

libxatracker1

xserver-xorg-* (7 flavours thereof)

all unistalled

so it looks like it want to keep uninstalled packages in solution 1, 3 and onward; and remove packages in solution 2

so we may start over again if we choose sol2

I would have no hesitation to remove brasero after all the mess it has done. Then I can reinstall google earth. The point is how the missing gvfs and ia32 are going to affect the system.

i suggest doing that with sol2

so hit ! for apply?

gvfs is used get mounting network media

:)

gvfs is used by unity

so i think it will install amd64

arch of it

the conversation got tangled. please keep on elaborate on solution 2 (as you are actually doing)

ia32 additional

go ahead with sol2

ia32-libs-multiarch:i386

ia32-libs

gvfs-daemons

gvfs

gvfs:i386

EOF

going ahead = press ! to apply?

yes

confirmed

accepted

done

now i have a preview of packages that could be upgraded but have been held in their current state to avoid breaking dependencies

could you mention some names?

22 packages

firefox

gir1.2-gtk-2.0

Did it want any confirmation?

No or not yet. This is a preview. The selector bar is on the header line to the group of 22 packages. I guess I can hit g for download/install/package and go ahead without affecting the default choice.

(I am also aware that your time budget of 1 hour is done. Feel free to tell me if you want to continue this now)

to see then g again to start

yep i forget, you have to g

ok for time, still have some

busy... it's removing much more than I expected

they are i386 right?

anyway let's see... plenty of these are i386 libraries

now it's unpacking selected libraries (pars construens)

back to aptitude!

splash screen with counters of packages upgradable, installed, not installed, obsolete but locally created, etc etc

look regular

search for ubuntu-desktop gives:

p --- ubuntu-desktop <none> 1.267.1

good

now you can reboot it

A question though: should I press + on ubuntu-desktop and install? The point where we branched off I guess

search for unity

result

piA unity +3.850 kB <none> 5.20.0-0ubuntu

so not installed yet

press g then g again to install

additional info

p unity:i386 <none> 5.20.0-0ubuntu

apparently installed. is this relevant?

not i386

i'm looking for "unity" only

done

busy

did you find "unity" ?

yes. done = started with installation of unity. good sign: it has unpacked lighdm

unpacking x11 and xorg

good, holding breath

no, breath deeply rather :-)

:D

/unity

i A unity 5.20.0-0ubuntu 5.20.0-0ubuntu

installed thus

yeah

time to reboot or shall we play around with aptitude a little more once we're at it?

it is ok leave other package after eboot

for example, does dpkg need a fix?

you may reboot

going to reboot

shutdown -r now

dpkg seems ok as apt-get works ok

Y E S

logged in in my profile

you deserve a medal

nice to hear that

great stuff

i'm installing the updates from the update manager now

ok

let me know when it does finish?

yes

on a shallow look it seems all fine

i am aware that some software has been removed but I'll take care of this

do you want to try installing those tools

I give it a try. Now about lesson learned... what should I stay on the lookout for?

if you see conflict use aptitude because it will show all possible solutions

apt-get shows only one, not always the best

avoid installing deb packages directly

with debi or dpkg

use repository

or ppa if possible

is firefox installed ?

@XavierStuvw

thanks a lot for these valuable tips

I have installed google earth for amd64 with dpkg, skype with the ubuntu software centre and paraview:amd64 with apt-get. It all works fine (at least on a shallow look).

good, and Brasero?

The question is: should I try to install brasero once again? Maybe more carefully with sudo apt-get --assume-no install brasero:amd64?

yep

you read my thoughs

:)

interesting

"brasero is already the latest version"

it's been re-installed automatically

yes i think it's a default application in Ubuntu

also: i had to run apt-get -f install right now to get google earth going and this has not impacted on brasero, this time

what did "apt-get -f install" install/remove?

so who knows why the last time it removed brasero and then demanded a general clearance before re-installing it?

going to copy the list of the libraries

8 packages

in my experience, many conflict are from multi-arch setup.

it's ok, i was afraid from removing :)

alien lib32z1 librpmbuild2 librpmsign0 lsb-core ncurses-term pax rpm

that why i checked you arch setup

just 2 day ago i so a case like your in my computer

after adding armhf arch

apt-get shows a warning about broken packages and wanted to fix

look i can now see in history what I typed exactly

that was

sudo apt-get install brasero

sudo apt-get autoremove

autoremove do clean up of auto installed packages only

yes. but these are the two commands that I can connect with the auto-immune spree that i experienced

i still kind of recall that the trouble came up with the installation of brasero, but I must confess that i forgot the autoremove step

may be your right, 1st command remove a main packages then 2nd clean all dependencies

it might well have been the case that running autoremove was a suggestion after the installation of brasero. The moment in which I did realise that something went wrong is when I could not use the browser any longer. Firefox was open but i could not refresh the tabs. Then I tried to reboot and discovered the extent of the damage

at any rate

the problem is sorted and you deserve full credit for this

could you add an answer to the question, maybe with a summary of what a user should do and I will mark it as a satisfactory answer. It seems a correct way to proceed unless you point me to a different usage.

the question = the post on the forum

ok i will post one. in the post that have a link to chat.

what you think is useful and what you like

So alright. have nice time.

I am really grateful for your help

All best wishes

Never mind, thank you. see you