4

Duplicate?

In the linked question I've posted my sources.list and it was deemed nothing out of the ordinary. So how could my question be a duplicate of fixing sources.list? How is that even remotely helpful?

Original question:

I installed steam from their website. Steam wants to install a bunch of packages, and stops with this error:

Steam needs to install these additional packages:
libc6:amd64 libc6:i386 libegl1:amd64 libegl1:i386 libgbm1:amd64 libgbm1:i386 libgl1-mesa-dri:amd64 libgl1-mesa-dri:i386 libgl1:amd64 libgl1:i386 steam-libs-amd64:amd64 steam-libs-i386:i386

Press return to proceed with the installation: 
......
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree

Reading state information... Done
libegl1 is already the newest version (1.3.2-1~ubuntu0.20.04.1).
libegl1 set to manually installed.
libgbm1 is already the newest version (21.0.3-0ubuntu0.3~20.04.5).
libgbm1 set to manually installed.
libgl1 is already the newest version (1.3.2-1~ubuntu0.20.04.1).
libgl1 set to manually installed.
libgl1-mesa-dri is already the newest version (21.0.3-0ubuntu0.3~20.04.5).
libgl1-mesa-dri set to manually installed.
libc6 is already the newest version (2.31-0ubuntu9.3).
libc6 set to manually installed.
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.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:


The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libc6 : Breaks: libc6:i386 (!= 2.31-0ubuntu9.3) but 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 is to be installed
 libc6:i386 : Breaks: libc6 (!= 2.31-0ubuntu9.2) but 2.31-0ubuntu9.3 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Installing libc6-386 manually did not work either:

$ sudo apt install libc6-i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... 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.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libc6-i386 : Depends: libc6 (= 2.31-0ubuntu9.2) but 2.31-0ubuntu9.3 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Update:

$ apt policy libc6
libc6:
  Installed: 2.31-0ubuntu9.3
  Candidate: 2.31-0ubuntu9.3
  Version table:
 *** 2.31-0ubuntu9.3 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.31-0ubuntu9.2 500
        500 http://mx.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages
     2.31-0ubuntu9 500
        500 http://mx.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages
$ apt policy libc6-i386
libc6-i386:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2.31-0ubuntu9.2
  Version table:
     2.31-0ubuntu9.2 500
        500 http://mx.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages
     2.31-0ubuntu9 500
        500 http://mx.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal/main amd64 Packages
user1785730
  • 387
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    I'm wondering where version 2.31-0ubuntu9.3 of libc6-i386 is coming from. I got version ...9.2 on a test install. Can you add the output of apt policy libc6 and apt policy libc6:i386 to your question please? I suspect a ppa is involved somewhere. – Organic Marble Dec 08 '21 at 00:05
  • I added the output to my question. I must confess that I have no clue what this 2.31-0ubuntu9.* business is about. – user1785730 Dec 08 '21 at 00:09
  • It appears that the 9.3 version of libc6 was manually installed. It does not come from any repository. Perhaps it is left over from a prior attempt to install steam. I suggest removing it and installing the 9.2 version from focal-updates. Once you do that, the i386 version should install. – Organic Marble Dec 08 '21 at 00:13
  • I'm sure that I've not installed anything (except Steam) not coming from the Ubuntu repositories. – user1785730 Dec 08 '21 at 00:45
  • If you look at the output from apt policy libc6, you can see that the installed version does not come from any repo currently used on your system. (the line that starts with 100 - notice how all the other versions listed after that give a repo). It could have come from a ppa that you removed. – Organic Marble Dec 08 '21 at 00:46
  • I haven't fiddled with PPA's either. – user1785730 Dec 08 '21 at 00:48
  • I can only report on what the output of your package manager is showing. You can continue to argue with me, or you could try fixing your system by removing that bad package. – Organic Marble Dec 08 '21 at 00:49
  • apt remove libc6 wants to remove a HUGE list of packages, warning me that essential packages are going to be removed! – user1785730 Dec 08 '21 at 00:49
  • You've messed up your system somehow in the past. Instead of removing the package, can you downgrade it using synaptic or aptitude? I don't know if that will work, frankly. – Organic Marble Dec 08 '21 at 00:50
  • I don't know how to do that. – user1785730 Dec 08 '21 at 00:54
  • If you have synaptic installed, you can find the package, then click Force Version in the Package...menu and select the 9.2 version in the box. But if a lot of other packages on your system depend on it, this may be extremely painful. https://i.imgur.com/Coc8urO.png – Organic Marble Dec 08 '21 at 00:57
  • This action also wants to remove quite a few packages like build-essential, g++, libboost- and several *-dev packages. – user1785730 Dec 08 '21 at 01:07
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    That's quite unfortunate, and I am out of ideas. – Organic Marble Dec 08 '21 at 01:19
  • You could try using aptitude running sudo apt install aptitude will install the package and then you could try installing your package again by sudo aptitude -f install libc6-i386 – Error404 Dec 08 '21 at 02:48
  • Your system probably misses focal-security pocket. Also you should not have 2.31-0ubuntu9.3 libc, you should have 2.31-0ubuntu9.2. You have to try sudo aptitude install libc6=2.31-0ubuntu9.2 to fix current problem. – N0rbert Dec 08 '21 at 07:43
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    Please run sudo aptitude install libc6=2.31-0ubuntu9.2 – N0rbert Dec 09 '21 at 05:42

1 Answers1

2

N0rbert's comment brought me on the right track, but it still wanted to remove quite a list of packages:

$ sudo aptitude install libc6=2.31-0ubuntu9.2
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
  libc6 
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 downgraded, 0 to remove and 14 not upgraded.
Need to get 2 715 kB of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libc6-dbg : Depends: libc6 (= 2.31-0ubuntu9.3) but 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 is to be installed
 libc6-dev : Depends: libc6 (= 2.31-0ubuntu9.3) but 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 is to be installed
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

  Remove the following packages:                                                       



    

  1.  build-essential [12.8ubuntu1.1 (focal-updates, now)]                               

    

    2. 

  2.  g++ [4:9.3.0-1ubuntu2 (focal, now)]                                                

    

    3. 

  3.  g++-9 [9.3.0-17ubuntu1~20.04 (focal-security, focal-updates, now)]                 

    

    4. 

  4.  libboost-atomic1.71-dev [1.71.0-6ubuntu6 (focal, now)]                             

    

    5. 

  5.  libboost-chrono1.71-dev [1.71.0-6ubuntu6 (focal, now)]                             

    

    6. 

  6.  libboost-date-time1.71-dev [1.71.0-6ubuntu6 (focal, now)]                          

    

    7. 

  7.  libboost-filesystem-dev [1.71.0.0ubuntu2 (focal, now)]                             

    

    8. 

  8.  libboost-filesystem1.71-dev [1.71.0-6ubuntu6 (focal, now)]                         

    

    9. 

  9.  libboost-regex-dev [1.71.0.0ubuntu2 (focal, now)]                                  

    

    10. 

  10. libboost-regex1.71-dev [1.71.0-6ubuntu6 (focal, now)]                              

    

    11. 

  11. libboost-serialization1.71-dev [1.71.0-6ubuntu6 (focal, now)]                      

    

    12. 

  12. libboost-system1.71-dev [1.71.0-6ubuntu6 (focal, now)]                             

    

    13. 

  13. libboost-thread-dev [1.71.0.0ubuntu2 (focal, now)]                                 

    

    14. 

  14. libboost-thread1.71-dev [1.71.0-6ubuntu6 (focal, now)]                             

    

    15. 

  15. libboost1.71-dev [1.71.0-6ubuntu6 (focal, now)]                                    

    

    16. 

  16. libc6-dbg [2.31-0ubuntu9.3 (now)]                                                  

    

    17. 

  17. libc6-dev [2.31-0ubuntu9.3 (now)]                                                  

    

    18. 

  18. libexpat1-dev [2.2.9-1build1 (focal, now)]                                         

    

    19. 

  19. libfreetype-dev [2.10.1-2ubuntu0.1 (focal-security, focal-updates, now)]           

    

    20. 

  20. libfreetype6-dev [2.10.1-2ubuntu0.1 (focal-security, focal-updates, now)]          

    

    21. 

  21. libicu-dev [66.1-2ubuntu2.1 (focal-security, focal-updates, now)]                  

    

    22. 

  22. libjpeg-dev [8c-2ubuntu8 (focal, now)]                                             

    

    23. 

  23. libjpeg-turbo8-dev [2.0.3-0ubuntu1.20.04.1 (focal-security, focal-updates, now)]   

    

    24. 

  24. libjpeg8-dev [8c-2ubuntu8 (focal, now)]                                            

    

    25. 

  25. libncurses-dev [6.2-0ubuntu2 (focal, now)]                                         

    

    26. 

  26. libpng-dev [1.6.37-2 (focal, now)]                                                 

    

    27. 

  27. libpython3-dev [3.8.2-0ubuntu2 (focal, now)]                                       

    

    28. 

  28. libpython3.8-dev [3.8.10-0ubuntu1~20.04.1 (focal-security, focal-updates, now)]    

    

    29. 

  29. libstdc++-9-dev [9.3.0-17ubuntu1~20.04 (focal-security, focal-updates, now)]       

    

    30. 

  30. libtiff-dev [4.1.0+git191117-2ubuntu0.20.04.2 (focal-security, focal-updates, now)]

    

    31. 

  31. python3-dev [3.8.2-0ubuntu2 (focal, now)]                                          

    

    32. 

  32. python3.8-dev [3.8.10-0ubuntu1~20.04.1 (focal-security, focal-updates, now)]       

    

    33. 

  33. zlib1g-dev [1:1.2.11.dfsg-2ubuntu1.2 (focal-updates, now)]                         


    

    Leave the following dependencies unresolved:
    

    34. 

  34. dpkg-dev recommends build-essential                                                

    

    35. 

  35. gcc recommends libc6-dev | libc-dev                                                

    

    36. 

  36. cython3 recommends python3-dev                                                     

    

    37. 

  37. gcc-9 recommends libc6-dev (>= 2.13-0ubuntu6)                                      

    

    38. 

  38. gdb recommends libc-dbg                                                            

    

    39. 

  39. libgcc-9-dev recommends libc6-dev (>= 2.13-0ubuntu6)                               

    

    40. 

  40. libpython3.8-dev recommends libc6-dev | libc-dev                                   

    

    41. 

  41. python3.8-dev recommends libc6-dev | libc-dev                                      

    

    42. 

  42. python3-pip recommends build-essential                                             

    

    43. 

  43. python3-pip recommends python3-dev (>= 3.2)                                        

    

    44.

Thus I forced 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 for libc6-dev and libc6-dbg as well:

$ sudo aptitude install libc6=2.31-0ubuntu9.2 libc6-dev=2.31-0ubuntu9.2 libc6-dbg=2.31-0ubuntu9.2

This command ran smoothly. Steam works now.

One questions remains though: How did I mess this up? How did I end up with libc6=2.31-0ubuntu9.3 in the first place? Should I make a new question for this?

user1785730
  • 387
  • I am glad you got it sorted out. At some point in the past you must have installed something that, perhaps unbeknownst to you, added a ppa and pulled in a bunch of packages newer that what are in the repos. Subsequently the ppa was removed. Answering such a question would involve digging into the history of your system, what you have installed and removed in the past; I am not sure anyone can answer that for you. – Organic Marble Dec 10 '21 at 21:19