You do not. If you were to install an older version of any module others would not work.

Info for the question never goes in comments you edit and add to the question.

@David then tell me how I can install another DE. That's the ultimate goal. Ubuntu forbidding anyone using a different DE is terrible.

Eh. Is it info? It's just a second example. The fix to one should be replicable on the second. It's just extraneous info to show it's not a one-off. But you can edit it. You're the boss.

Again add to question and no Ubuntu does not stop installing the correct version of any supported DE.

This should not happen when installing a DE from the sources related to a specific Ubuntu release. If you start to mix sources or have PPAs activated, this may happen. Please add to the original question which Ubuntu release you are using, show your sources.list plus list additional sources that are activated on your system.

What version of Ubuntu?

22.04.01 LTS. As an ubuntu help forum, assume I know nothing of the OS. How do I get sources? echo $sources.list just tells me ".list". I have barely touched terminal package installers.

I can only recall from any other tutorials and research questions on the matter of doing sudo apt install ________ for anything and everything. If that mixes sources, I have no knowledge of how to undo that mix.

The original sources for Ubuntu 22.04.x hold python3-software-properties version 0.99.22. As you have obviously a newer version installed, it means that it is very likely that you have other sources activated as well - which leads to the problem. The sources.list can be found here: /etc/apt/sources.list . Copy and paste the complete content of this file to your original post. In case the directory /etc/apt.sources.list.d/ contains any files, please copy and paste the content of each file to your original post, too.

I’m voting to close this question because it's a thinly veiled rant

I'm voting it to open because I am trying to figure out how to install something via sudo apt and I'd just like some support. Sorry if you can tell that I am disappointed in running into errors in something that even other commenters like David said should not be throwing errors.

@noisefloor I installed at the suggestion of someone at another time python3 (and it still didn't work, it was missing some dependency in its own right) using sudo apt install python3. That may be why it's higher version??

@noisefloor Done. I got the contents of sources.list in the original post for you. My folder for sources.list.d is EMPTY. There is a sources.list.save in /etc/apt but it is exactly the same as sources.list

Did you run sudo apt-get update prior to trying to install any new packages? If not, do so and try again. Please also show the output of apt-cache show python3-software-properties.

Just tried the apt-get update. It found things to update. But it didn't resolve the issue. Copying and pasting that into original post. I will then get to the second suggestion of your comment. Thank you noisefloor for trying to help me.

Try sudo apt-get update followed by sudo apt-get upgrade. In case any errors occur, they need to be resolved first.

@noisefloor I just tried that. Same error results for attempting to install kde, even though apt-get update and apt-get upgrade are giving successful output. Adding that output to the OP.

How about doing an apt policy software-properties-qt and adding the output to the question? That command shows the different versions of a package available to your system and where they came from. This kind of problem usually results from having added a problematic source to your system, and that command can help track it down.

My guess is that you had the jammy-updates/universe repository enabled at some point, and now only have jammy/universe

@OrganicMarble I just did that, thanks for the idea, this looks helpful? It tells me I have none installed? But earlier output said I had 0.99.22.3? I could be misinterpreting what the installed means here though.

apt policy muon gave me ``` muon: Installed: (none) Candidate: 4:5.8.0-1ubuntu5 Version table: 4:5.8.0-1ubuntu5 500 500 us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/universe amd64 Packages ```

@steeldriver so is there a way to fix that? Because I see the one word difference, but not the implications or why the jammy stuff wouldn't automatically resolve that for me. I know I've never manually edited the sources list, but maybe some command thrown into a tutorial answer did that.

I appreciate the attention from everyone trying to help me troubleshoot this. I have to step away for now, it's been an hour and I don't know how soon I'll be back.