upgrade solves other issues?

[Colin Law]

On 8 April 2014 10:44, John R. Sowden <jsowden at americansentry.net> wrote:
> On 04/08/2014 12:45 AM, Colin Law wrote:
>>
>> On 7 April 2014 21:11, John R. Sowden <jsowden at americansentry.net> wrote:
>>>
>>> I am having a problem whereby gcc and other low level programs cannot be
>>> upgraded (even by root).  I have written about this before with varying
>>> responses.  I do not want to (unless I _have_ to) remove Ubuntu from my
>>> computer and "reinstall the operating system", as Microsoft says.  I will
>>> not know what programs I have added, written, etc. over the years that
>>> will
>>> be lost.  Will upgrading to 14.04 solve this issue?
>>
>>
>> That rather depends on what the problem you currently have is.  Remind
>> us of the problem and someone may be able to answer.
>>
>> Colin
>>
>>>
>>> Also what directories will be left alone?
>>>
>>> John
>
> It started when I was noticing when I did Ubuntu updates, there were base
> updates (binutils) that I was unable to select.  After a while of no luck, I
> gave up (computer was working ok).

Let's go back to square one, does
sudo apt-get update
show any errors? If so then post them.
If not, what does
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
show?  Copy/paste it here.

Colin

>
> Then I tried to install Pure Basic.  It would not install.  It creates
> assembler code (i think), then compiles it into an executable.  This would
> not work because it uses gcc or an associated computer.  I went on this list
> and this is the last message (most complete) that I got in response to
> various executions I ran:
>
>
> On 03/15/2014 05:26 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>> On 14 March 2014 23:20, John R. Sowden <jsowden at americansentry.net> wrote:
>>> It seems that my problem has to do with "held" files (from synaptic) but
>>> I
>>> cannot determine which files are "held" so I can delete them.
>>
>> I Am aware that Synaptic was my own suggestion - but if you try
>> from the shell with apt-get, then you can fairly easily copy-and-paste
>> the errors here...
>>
> I went to the site you suggested.  It seems that others have had the same
> issue, but it has not
> been resolved.  It seems that this is where the Ubuntu staff should step in.
> I appreciate your stepping
> back into the confusion.  I am almost ready for the microsoft "reinstall the
> operating system" solution.
>
> below is a synaptic error message after trying to "fix broken packages"
>
> E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
> E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused
> by held packages.
>
> E: Unable to correct dependencies
> E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
>
> E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused
> by held packages.
>
> Below is an apt-get error message after running apt-get build-essential:
> The following packages have unmet dependencies:
>  build-essential : Depends: gcc (>= 4:4.4.3) but it is not going to be
> installed
>                    Depends: g++ (>= 4:4.4.3) but it is not going to be
> installed
> E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
>
> It seems that the program knows what messages are "held" but is not showing
> them,
> nor is it showing the command to see them (often done).
>
> If I try to delete gcc, it want to delete a lot of libraries that are
> associated with gcc, and therefore,
> without those libraries, about 100 valid programs will be deleted because if
> dependencies.
>
> It seems like there is a old version of gcc on the computer which is causing
> this chain of events.
> I tried to manually remove gcc, but could not (as root, I did not have
> permission).
>
> By the way, for several months, whenever an upgrade came along, the Ubuntu
> base section
> had binutils, and assembler listed but were unchecked.  It would not allow
> me to check them.
>
> I am also getting hundreds of errors on boot each day, ever since I turned
> on the display of the
> initial programs.  The errors reference "fd 7" and bad directory or file
> name.  The normal execution
> of the system does not seem to be effected (libreoffice, thunderbird,
> firefox, printing)
> ============================================
>
> tia, John
>
>
>
>
>
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