problem with programs

[Leonard Chatagnier]

--- Haneef Bashir <darkfena313 at gmail.com> wrote:

> i tried the comman and this is what happened:
> 
I should mention that user list protocol prefers you
bottom post instead of top post.  Some will get highly
perturbed over top posting. FWIW.

It looks like aptitude is trying very hard to fix the
dependencies/broken emacs21 package but not quite
getting there.  Remember I'm no expert but if I lead
you astray someone on the list will jump in and
correct me.  That said you can try other things:

Try "sudo aptitude -f install" again.
Try "sudo aptitude" to enter the aptitude GUI. Type
"b" to see the list of broken packages and check the
dependencies listing. Select the broken package(s) for
installation. If doesn't work, try installing the ones
listed that are not installed(depends). The GUI of
aptitude is powerful but hard to use if not familiar
with it.  Look closely at the listed dependencies and
mark all for installation.  I just used the aptitude
GUI to repair broken package/dependencies resulting
from installing mailx and it worked holding back
mplayer but an aptitude update followed by aptitude
dist-upgrade resulted in upgrading mplayer to where it
was before installing mailx. When you first open the
aptitude GUI, there will be some data at the bottom of
the screen in red highlighting that will give you an
option to accept fixes. Select the "accept"(note there
is coded key to type) and review the list of actions
it will perform.  You can reveiw the actions and
change them as desired then under the action drop down
menu select the first item "install/removepackages g"
or just type "g" from the keybord. This will implement
the actions accepted.  Follow this, when you get back
to the CLI with "sudo aptitude update" then "sudo
aptitude upgrade" then "sudo aptitude dist- upgrade
and barring
any more errors you should be ok and can install any
more programs wanted. Remember awithout the quotes on
the commands. I wrote this as if you have no
experience with the aptitude GUI and probably poorly
at that. If I'm correct in that assumption you should
read the manual or at least open the GUI and play
around with it. No action will take place until you
type "g" or select same from action drop down menu.
You can also try installing "emacs21" seperately.
You can do "aptitude show <package name> that will
show all the dependencies/conflicts to get more ideas
of what to do.
Try "sudo dpkg-reconfigure <package name> which may
help.
You can try the -f switch for aptitude install but
that cause other trouble and is not normally
recommended but I have used it(like "sudo aptitude -f
install emacs21)

Closely read the error output of any command you try
as it may clue you to what's wrong.

Good luck, try it out and report back(with error
output) if still having problems and someone will help
you out.  If my suggestions don't help, I'm out of
ideas and someone more experienced will need to chime
in.

Good luck,

Leonard Chatagnier
lenc5570 at sbcglobal.net