#277964 apt: claims "unmet dependencies" when it should remove the package (lots of them)

Package:
apt
Source:
apt
Description:
commandline package manager
Submitter:
Jan Braun
Date:
2022-04-13 18:57:05 UTC
Severity:
minor
#277964#5
Date:
2004-10-23 19:02:21 UTC
From:
To:
Hello,
apt seems to have problems removing a package that is depended upon by
a lot of packages (or a deep hierachy of packages). Trying to remove
libnewt0.51 or whiptail from my sarge system produces bogus error
messages, while a two-step solution (removing e.g. defoma, then removing
libnewt0.51) works fine, so there's an easy workaround.

Trying to remove libc6 looks like it would succeed, tho.

regards,
	Jan

$ sudo apt-get remove libnewt0.51
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  libxft1: Depends: libfontconfig1 (>= 2.2.1) but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages
$ dpkg -l libnewt0.51 libfontconfig1 libxft1
[...]
ii  libnewt0.51                0.51.6-18                  Not Erik's Windowing Toolkit - text mode windowing with slang
ii  libfontconfig1             2.2.3-1                    generic font configuration library (shared library)
ii  libxft1                    4.3.0.dfsg.1-8             FreeType-based font drawing library for X (version 1)
$ sudo apt-get remove whiptail
[...]
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  defoma: Depends: whiptail but it is not going to be installed or
                     dialog but it is not going to be installed
E: Broken packages
$
-- Package-specific info:
#277964#10
Date:
2004-10-23 21:06:12 UTC
From:
To:
What is in /etc/apt/preferences?
#277964#15
Date:
2004-10-23 22:46:02 UTC
From:
To:
Matt Zimmerman schrob:

Nothing, it doesn't even exist.
/etc/apt/apt.conf contains just
        APT::Default-Release "testing";
and /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/ has the stock versions of
        20listchanges  70debconf  90debsums
(this is a sarge-only install)

I'm attaching the output of
	apt-get -o Debug::pkgProblemResolver=true remove libnewt0.51
in case it helps.

        Jan
#277964#20
Date:
2004-10-23 23:15:39 UTC
From:
To:
Try removing that and see if it helps.

(it has the same effect as an entry in /etc/apt/preferences)
#277964#25
Date:
2004-10-23 23:52:41 UTC
From:
To:
Matt Zimmerman schrob:

No, it's still the same.
	Jan
#277964#30
Date:
2022-04-13 18:48:31 UTC
From:
To:
Hello,

I lead family investment vehicles who want to invest a proportion of their funds with a trust party .

Please if you are interested in discussing investment in your sector?

Please email, or simply write to me here. I value promptness and will make every attempt to respond within a short time.

Thank you.
Allen S.