Running Debian 12.7 with MATE
When launching Synaptic I get a message saying
[ You have 1 broken package on your system!"
Use the "Broken" filter to locate it. ]
Synaptic's Help isn't helpful :{
It also reports packages to be updated.

Also started to install gnumeric and it wanted to remove some files I
associate with printer drivers and also ghostscript.

To investigate I searched for it and Synaptic had a red filled box to
the left of its name.

I did a power off/on restart. Still the same.

What should I do now?
I suspect using apt &/or cousins would be more informative.\
Never used them.

Help please.
[ learned >60 years ago - If you don't know what you're doin *DON'T*!!!]

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On Thu, Nov 28, 2024 at 07:55:37AM -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:

Running Debian 12.7 with MATE
When launching Synaptic I get a message saying
[ You have 1 broken package on your system!"
Use the "Broken" filter to locate it. ]
Synaptic's Help isn't helpful :{
It also reports packages to be updated.

Screenshot please Richard - if we can't see it, we can't diagnose it.

Also started to install gnumeric and it wanted to remove some files I associate with printer drivers and also ghostscript.

Details please.

To investigate I searched for it and Synaptic had a red filled box to the left of its name.

Synaptic is a front end to apt. Use command line apt to see what it
reports?

I did a power off/on restart. Still the same.

What did you expect this would have fixed: nothing had changed.

What should I do now?
I suspect using apt &/or cousins would be more informative.\
Never used them.

You might find that the details of exactly what's broken would be more tractable, yes.

Help please.
[ learned >60 years ago - If you don't know what you're doin *DON'T*!!!]

All best, as ever,

Andy
([email protected])


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On Thu 28 Nov 2024 at 07:55:37 (-0600), Richard Owlett wrote:

Running Debian 12.7 with MATE
When launching Synaptic I get a message saying
[ You have 1 broken package on your system!"
Use the "Broken" filter to locate it. ]
Synaptic's Help isn't helpful :{
It also reports packages to be updated.

Also started to install gnumeric and it wanted to remove some files I associate with printer drivers and also ghostscript.

To investigate I searched for it and Synaptic had a red filled box to
the left of its name.

I did a power off/on restart. Still the same.

What should I do now?
I suspect using apt &/or cousins would be more informative.\
Never used them.

Help please.
[ learned >60 years ago - If you don't know what you're doin *DON'T*!!!]

$ dpkg -l | grep -v '^ii '

may give you an idea of which packages are broken.

Cheers,
David.

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On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 12:30:44 -0600
David Wright <[email protected]> wrote:

On Thu 28 Nov 2024 at 07:55:37 (-0600), Richard Owlett wrote:

Running Debian 12.7 with MATE
When launching Synaptic I get a message saying
[ You have 1 broken package on your system!"
Use the "Broken" filter to locate it. ]
Synaptic's Help isn't helpful :{
It also reports packages to be updated.

Also started to install gnumeric and it wanted to remove some files
I associate with printer drivers and also ghostscript.

To investigate I searched for it and Synaptic had a red filled box
to the left of its name.

I did a power off/on restart. Still the same.

What should I do now?
I suspect using apt &/or cousins would be more informative.\
Never used them.

Help please.
[ learned >60 years ago - If you don't know what you're doin
*DON'T*!!!]

$ dpkg -l | grep -v '^ii '

may give you an idea of which packages are broken.

As to what can be done... 'broken' usually means that one or more
dependencies of the package are unavailable, and cannot be found in the selected repositories. This happens reasonably often in unstable, but it shouldn't happen in a new installation of stable.

If I were to guess, I'd say it involved a package which used to be in
an older stable, but an upgrade to a new version of stable has occurred,
and the new version doesn't contain the package. The package will not be removed, but it is now unsupported, and libraries it depends on may
have been upgraded to versions outside the dependency specification. I
have seen that happen, and it was a package I used to use occasionally
before the upgrade. Some years ago now.

We will have a better idea once some useful error messages have been
obtained, such as by trying to upgrade the package using apt. Actually, Synaptic should be able to show the errors, by looking in the Details
box during an upgrade attempt. It should display about the same
messages as apt would.

--
Joe

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On 11/29/24 12:30 PM, David Wright wrote:

On Thu 28 Nov 2024 at 07:55:37 (-0600), Richard Owlett wrote:

Running Debian 12.7 with MATE
When launching Synaptic I get a message saying
[ You have 1 broken package on your system!"
Use the "Broken" filter to locate it. ]
Synaptic's Help isn't helpful :{
It also reports packages to be updated.

Also started to install gnumeric and it wanted to remove some files I
associate with printer drivers and also ghostscript.

To investigate I searched for it and Synaptic had a red filled box to
the left of its name.

I did a power off/on restart. Still the same.

What should I do now?
I suspect using apt &/or cousins would be more informative.\
Never used them.

Help please.
[ learned >60 years ago - If you don't know what you're doin *DON'T*!!!]

$ dpkg -l | grep -v '^ii '

may give you an idea of which packages are broken.

Cheers,
David.

Its cryptic output referred to "ghostscript" for which Synaptic
displayed a red check-box. I tried to remove it and then reinstall with synaptic which repeatedly complained when I tried to exit asking if it
should discard marked changes. I choose Apply from menu. It responds:

W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/debian-security/pool/updates/main/g/ghostscript/libgs10_10.0.0%7edfsg-11%2bdeb12u5_amd64.deb
404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.70.132 80]

W: Failed to fetch http://security.debian.org/debian-security/pool/updates/main/g/ghostscript/libgs10-common_10.0.0%7edfsg-11%2bdeb12u5_all.deb
404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.70.132 80]

I then force exit and switch to terminal mode and do following:

richard@debian12:~$ su
Password:
root@debian12:/home/richard# dpkg -l | grep -v '^ii ' Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-=============================================-===================================-============-================================================================================
iU ghostscript 10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u5 amd64 interpreter for the PostScript language and for PDF
root@debian12:/home/richard#

followed by

oot@debian12:/home/richard# dpkg -l '*ghostscript*'| grep -v '^ii ' Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description +++-================-======================-============-===================================================
iU ghostscript 10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u5 amd64 interpreter for the PostScript language and for PDF
un ghostscript-cups <none> <none> (no description available)
root@debian12:/home/richard#

Thank you.
Now what? ?? ??? <groaning grin> ;/

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On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 05:18:35 -0600
Richard Owlett <[email protected]> wrote:

On 11/29/24 12:30 PM, David Wright wrote:

On Thu 28 Nov 2024 at 07:55:37 (-0600), Richard Owlett wrote:

Running Debian 12.7 with MATE
When launching Synaptic I get a message saying
[ You have 1 broken package on your system!"
Use the "Broken" filter to locate it. ]
Synaptic's Help isn't helpful :{
It also reports packages to be updated.

Also started to install gnumeric and it wanted to remove some
files I associate with printer drivers and also ghostscript.

To investigate I searched for it and Synaptic had a red filled box
to the left of its name.

I did a power off/on restart. Still the same.

What should I do now?
I suspect using apt &/or cousins would be more informative.\
Never used them.

Help please.
[ learned >60 years ago - If you don't know what you're doin
*DON'T*!!!]

$ dpkg -l | grep -v '^ii '

may give you an idea of which packages are broken.

Cheers,
David.

Its cryptic output referred to "ghostscript" for which Synaptic
displayed a red check-box. I tried to remove it and then reinstall
with synaptic which repeatedly complained when I tried to exit
asking if it should discard marked changes. I choose Apply from menu.
It responds:

W: Failed to
fetch http://security.debian.org/debian-security/pool/updates/main/g/ghostscript/libgs10_10.0.0%7edfsg-11%2bdeb12u5_amd64.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.70.132 80]

W: Failed to
fetch http://security.debian.org/debian-security/pool/updates/main/g/ghostscript/libgs10-common_10.0.0%7edfsg-11%2bdeb12u5_all.deb 404 Not Found [IP: 151.101.70.132 80]

I don't know if it helps, but the current ghostscript on my Deb 12 is
version 12u6, not 12u5.

What happens when you try:

apt upgrade ghostscript

from a terminal? (as root/sudo, close Synaptic first, apt uses the same database)

--
Joe

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On Sat, Nov 30, 2024 at 14:45:01 +0000, Joe wrote:

I don't know if it helps, but the current ghostscript on my Deb 12 is
version 12u6, not 12u5.

What happens when you try:

apt upgrade ghostscript

"apt upgrade" does not take a package name as an argument. It tries
to upgrade *all* of the packages you have.

To upgrade a single package, use "install" instead.

apt update
apt install ghostscript

However, in Richard's case, the package is in state iU (Unpacked),
which indicates that something failed during the installation,
around the Unpacking step.

The first thing I would've checked is "df". Make sure there are no
file systems running out of space.

If the file systems were fine, then I would've done

dpkg --configure -a

to retry whatever failed during or after the Unpacking step. If
that fails, then you should see a message telling you why. Reporting
that message would be an important detail when bringing the issue to
the mailing list.

If that command does nothing at all (because the package isn't ready
for configuration), then I might try removing it, or I might try
"apt update; apt install ghostscript" depending on which one I feel is
more likely to work at that moment.

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On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 10:00:03 -0500
Greg Wooledge <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sat, Nov 30, 2024 at 14:45:01 +0000, Joe wrote:

I don't know if it helps, but the current ghostscript on my Deb 12
is version 12u6, not 12u5.

What happens when you try:

apt upgrade ghostscript

"apt upgrade" does not take a package name as an argument. It tries
to upgrade *all* of the packages you have.

To upgrade a single package, use "install" instead.

apt update
apt install ghostscript

Sorry, I have done a couple of single upgrades, but long in the past,
probably before apt was a separate command.

--
Joe

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On 11/30/24 9:00 AM, Greg Wooledge wrote:

On Sat, Nov 30, 2024 at 14:45:01 +0000, Joe wrote:

I don't know if it helps, but the current ghostscript on my Deb 12 is
version 12u6, not 12u5.

What happens when you try:

apt upgrade ghostscript

"apt upgrade" does not take a package name as an argument. It tries
to upgrade *all* of the packages you have.

To upgrade a single package, use "install" instead.

apt update
apt install ghostscript

However, in Richard's case, the package is in state iU (Unpacked),
which indicates that something failed during the installation,
around the Unpacking step.

The first thing I would've checked is "df". Make sure there are no
file systems running out of space.

If the file systems were fine, then I would've done

dpkg --configure -a

to retry whatever failed during or after the Unpacking step. If
that fails, then you should see a message telling you why. Reporting
that message would be an important detail when bringing the issue to
the mailing list.

If that command does nothing at all (because the package isn't ready
for configuration), then I might try removing it, or I might try
"apt update; apt install ghostscript" depending on which one I feel is
more likely to work at that moment.

In terminal mode as root I did "apt update" which concluded:=

Fetched 62.1 MB in 30s (2,070 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
77 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
N: Repository 'http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm InRelease' changed its 'Version' value from '12.7' to '12.8'

also

root@debian12:/home/richard# df
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
udev 1899716 0 1899716 0% /dev
tmpfs 386696 1540 385156 1% /run
/dev/sda9 23315280 14930176 7175404 68% /
tmpfs 1933464 488 1932976 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 5120 8 5112 1% /run/lock
/dev/sda6 14348168 24 13597456 1% /Bible
/dev/sda8 65873764 53583092 8918864 86% /Deb9Home
tmpfs 386692 72 386620 1% /run/user/1000

Then

root@debian12:/home/richard# apt --fix-broken install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
ghostscript libgs10 libgs10-common
The following packages will be upgraded:
ghostscript libgs10 libgs10-common
3 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 74 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 3,111 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main amd64 ghostscript amd64 10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6 [57.5 kB]
Get:2 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main amd64 libgs10 amd64 10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6 [2,467 kB]
Get:3 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main amd64 libgs10-common all 10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6 [587 kB]
Fetched 3,111 kB in 1s (2,268 kB/s)
Reading changelogs... Done
(Reading database ... 180583 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack .../ghostscript_10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6_amd64.deb ... Unpacking ghostscript (10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6) over (10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u5) ...
Preparing to unpack .../libgs10_10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6_amd64.deb ... Unpacking libgs10:amd64 (10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6) over (10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u4) ...
Preparing to unpack .../libgs10-common_10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6_all.deb ... Unpacking libgs10-common (10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6) over (10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u4) ...
Setting up libgs10-common (10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6) ...
Setting up libgs10:amd64 (10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6) ...
Setting up ghostscript (10.0.0~dfsg-11+deb12u6) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.36-9+deb12u8) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.11.2-2) ...
root@debian12:/home/richard#

All seems well so far. "dpkg -l | grep -v '^ii ' " reported no problems.
Closed terminal and launched Synaptic. No errors *OR* warnings :}

Thanks to all.
What should I do next ( /etc/debian_version reports 12.7)?

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On Sun, Dec 01, 2024 at 04:43:00AM -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:

On 11/30/24 9:00 AM, Greg Wooledge wrote:

"apt upgrade" does not take a package name as an argument. It tries
to upgrade *all* of the packages you have.

To upgrade a single package, use "install" instead.

apt update
apt install ghostscript

If the file systems were fine, then I would've done

dpkg --configure -a

Greg's advice is absolutely correct. Occasionally a package will fail
to unpack and the command above will essentially fix this.

to retry whatever failed during or after the Unpacking step. If
that fails, then you should see a message telling you why. Reporting
that message would be an important detail when bringing the issue to
the mailing list.

In terminal mode as root I did "apt update" which concluded:=

Fetched 62.1 MB in 30s (2,070 kB/s)
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
77 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
N: Repository 'http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm InRelease' changed its 'Version' value from '12.7' to '12.8'

At that point, I might have stopped. Potentially you don't update often
and you've missed the point release upgrade to 12.8 in the last month or
so. That might also explain why files were missing, so:

apt update ; apt full-upgrade

or (my preference but others methods are also valid)

apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade

Then

root@debian12:/home/richard# apt --fix-broken install

<snippage>

Processing triggers for man-db (2.11.2-2) ...
root@debian12:/home/richard#

All seems well so far. "dpkg -l | grep -v '^ii ' " reported no problems.

Right, the upgrade you did seems to have worked fine.

Closed terminal and launched Synaptic. No errors *OR* warnings :}

Thanks to all.
What should I do next ( /etc/debian_version reports 12.7)?

apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade to make sure you're up to date
then reboot. At that point, /etc/debian-version should read 12.8
and uname -a should give you 6.0-28-amd64 as your kernel version

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater








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On 12/1/24 6:12 AM, Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:

On Sun, Dec 01, 2024 at 04:43:00AM -0600, Richard Owlett wrote:

[SNIP]
What should I do next ( /etc/debian_version reports 12.7)?

apt-get update ; apt-get dist-upgrade to make sure you're up to date
then reboot. At that point, /etc/debian-version should read 12.8

It does.

and uname -a should give you 6.0-28-amd64 as your kernel version

I see:

richard@debian12:~$ uname -a
Linux debian12 6.1.0-28-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.119-1 (2024-11-22) x86_64 GNU/Linux
richard@debian12:~$

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

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