I can't remove packages that have unmet dependencies

Question

EDIT 3 :

This is after command sudo apt-get purge libpciaccess*

laur@laur-System-Product-Name:~$ sudo apt-get purge
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libpciaccess0 : Breaks: libpciaccess0:i386 (!= 0.14-1) but 0.16- 
0ubuntu1 is installed
libpciaccess0:i386 : Breaks: libpciaccess0 (!= 0.16-0ubuntu1) but 
0.14-1 is installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages 
(or specify a solution).
laur@laur-System-Product-Name:~$ sudo apt-get purge libpciaccess*
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done
Note, selecting 'libpciaccess0' for glob 'libpciaccess'
Note, selecting 'libpciaccess-dev' for glob 'libpciaccess'
Package 'libpciaccess-dev' is not installed, so not removed
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
intel-media-va-driver : Depends: libpciaccess0 but it is not going to 
be installed
libdrm-intel1 : Depends: libpciaccess0 but it is not going to be 
installed
spice-vdagent : Depends: libpciaccess0 but it is not going to be 
installed
ubuntu-drivers-common : Depends: libpciaccess0 (>= 0.10.7) but it is 
not going to be installed
xserver-xorg-core : Depends: libpciaccess0 (>= 0.12.902) but it is not 
going to be installed
xserver-xorg-video-ati : Depends: libpciaccess0 but it is not going to 
be installed
xserver-xorg-video-intel : Depends: libpciaccess0 (>= 
0.8.0+git20071002) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages 
(or specify a solution).

More of them are appearing... I tried installing Intel Graphics For Linux also, but unfortunatelly its instalation didn't worked.

EDIT 2 :

laur@laur-System-Product-Name:~$ sudo apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
libpciaccess0
The following packages will be upgraded:
libpciaccess0
1 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 94 not upgraded.
13 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/17,9 kB of archives.
After this operation, 33,8 kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y
(Reading database ... 232583 files and directories currently 
installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../libpciaccess0_0.16-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking libpciaccess0:amd64 (0.16-0ubuntu1) over (0.14-1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive 
/var/cache/apt/archives/libpciaccess0_0.16-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb (-- 
unpack):
trying to overwrite shared 
'/usr/share/doc/libpciaccess0/changelog.Debian.gz', which is different 
 from other instances of package libpciaccess0:amd64
 Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/libpciaccess0_0.16-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I recieve the error above ^

EDIT :

I restored the default repositories through method provided by @karel and still I get the same output:

laur@laur-System-Product-Name:~$ sudo apt-get upgrade
[sudo] password for laur: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libpciaccess-dev : Depends: libpciaccess0 (= 0.16-0ubuntu1) but 0.14-1 
is installed
libpciaccess0 : Breaks: libpciaccess0:i386 (!= 0.14-1) but 0.16- 
0ubuntu1 is installed
libpciaccess0:i386 : Breaks: libpciaccess0 (!= 0.16-0ubuntu1) but 
0.14-1 is installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages 
(or specify a solution).

Good afternoon! I am facing a really annoying problem with Ubuntu 20.04, I have those packages that have unmet dependencies, I tried using all the methods found by me on Internet to remove them, but none of them worked as expected.

I want to just fix this error in order to install some required upgrades for Linux

I tried sudo apt --fix-broken install but didn't worked.

I am new to Linux distribution and I want just to learn how to use it better.

Thank you for any kind of help!

laur@laur-System-Product-Name:~$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for laur: 
Hit:1 http://ro.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:2 https://repo.steampowered.com/steam stable InRelease                     
Hit:3 http://ro.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease              
Hit:4 https://deb.nodesource.com/node_14.x focal InRelease                     
Hit:5 https://brave-browser-apt-release.s3.brave.com stable InRelease          
Hit:6 http://ro.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease            
Get:7 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease [107 
kB]      
Hit:8 https://packages.microsoft.com/repos/ms-teams stable InRelease           
Fetched 107 kB in 1s (112 kB/s)                          
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
7 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
laur@laur-System-Product-Name:~$ sudo apt list --upgradable
Listing... Done
aptdaemon-data/focal-updates,focal-updates,focal-security,focal- 
security 1.1.1+bzr982-0ubuntu32.2 all [upgradable from: 1.1.1+bzr982- 
0ubuntu32]
aptdaemon/focal-updates,focal-updates,focal-security,focal-security 
1.1.1+bzr982-0ubuntu32.2 all [upgradable from: 1.1.1+bzr982-0ubuntu32]
gdebi-core/focal,focal 0.9.5.7+nmu3 all [upgradable from: 
0.9.5.7+nmu3]
libpciaccess0/focal 0.16-0ubuntu1 amd64 [upgradable from: 0.14-1]
python3-aptdaemon.gtk3widgets/focal-updates,focal-updates,focal- 
security,focal-security 1.1.1+bzr982-0ubuntu32.2 all [upgradable from: 
1.1.1+bzr982-0ubuntu32]
python3-aptdaemon/focal-updates,focal-updates,focal-security,focal- 
security 1.1.1+bzr982-0ubuntu32.2 all [upgradable from: 1.1.1+bzr982- 
0ubuntu32]
secureboot-db/focal-updates 1.6~20.04.1 amd64 [upgradable from: 1.5]
laur@laur-System-Product-Name:~$ sudo apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
libpciaccess-dev : Depends: libpciaccess0 (= 0.16-0ubuntu1) but 0.14-1 
is installed
libpciaccess0 : Breaks: libpciaccess0:i386 (!= 0.14-1) but 0.16- 
0ubuntu1 is installed
libpciaccess0:i386 : Breaks: libpciaccess0 (!= 0.16-0ubuntu1) but 
0.14-1 is installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages 
(or specify a solution).

vicki · Answer 1 · 2020-10-02T18:05:07.000

Firstly try, sudo dpkg --configure -a

If that didn't work use aptitude instead of apt-get

sudo aptitude install package_name_here

It will suggest dependencies solutions. Try them. If everything else fails, you need to manually edit dpkg status file

sudo gedit /var/lib/dpkg/status

Then look for the problematic package name. Remove those packages and save the file. Then update and upgrade.

sudo apt-get update && upgrade

Then it will install required packages during update. Let me know if this doesn't work out.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 02 '20 at 18:27

After some digging around with different solutions I came to one that helped me.

I restored the sources.list file using solution provided in this answer
I restored the status file using these commands found here:

mv /var/lib/dpkg/status /var/lib/dpkg/status.old
ls -l /var/backups/dpkg.status*
cp /var/backups/dpkg.status.0 /var/lib/dpkg/status

I had installed i386 architecture on my system when I tried installing Intel Graphics For Linux and some other programs that I didn't kept track off. I removed it using:

sudo dpkg --remove-architecture i386

And finally I did the last 2 commands:

sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade

Before I removed the package that was in my error (the libpciaccess one) using sudo dpkg -r libpciaccess* or sudo apt-get purge libpciaccess* , but I think restoring the status file was enough because when I updated and upgraded Ubuntu installed all it's needed upgrades after and my error at Software Updates was gone.

I think this answer will help others that have the same problem as me. Thank you for your awesome help!

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 03 '21 at 08:13

Just:

sudo apt-get remove package2remove --fix-broken

Man says:

   -f, --fix-broken
       Fix; attempt to correct a system with broken dependencies in place.
       This option, when used with install/remove, can omit any packages
       to permit APT to deduce a likely solution

score 0 · Answer 4 · edited Dec 24 '20 at 05:43

0

Go to the /usr/share/doc/.
Delete the two directories libpciaccess0 and libpciaccess-dev directories
And do sudo apt install --fix-broken and the problem will be fixed.

edited Dec 24 '20 at 05:43

answered Dec 11 '20 at 12:17

Amman Elhasbi

1

I can't remove packages that have unmet dependencies

4 Answers4

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