cannot run apt-get upgrade

[Colin Law]

On 20 June 2014 09:04, Ian A Taylor <iat at st-andrews.ac.uk> wrote:
> Sir/Madam
>
> I am running an Ubuntu 12.04 system
>
> cat /etc/lsb-release
> DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
> DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
> DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
> DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS"
>
> uname -a
> 3.2.0-60-generic #91-Ubuntu SMP Wed Feb 19 03:54:44 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64
> x86_64 GNU/Linux
>
> When I try to upgrade the software I keep getting errors
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> apt-get upgrade
> Reading package lists... Done
> Building dependency tree... Done
> The following packages have been kept back:
>   duplicity linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic nis
> The following packages will be upgraded:
>   apache2 apache2-mpm-prefork apache2-utils apache2.2-bin apache2.2-common
> apt apt-transport-https apt-utils bluez bluez-alsa bluez-cups
> bluez-gstreamer cups cups-bsd cups-client cups-common
>   cups-ppdc deja-dup dpkg dpkg-dev firefox firefox-branding
> gir1.2-gdkpixbuf-2.0 gnome-control-center gnome-control-center-data
> gnome-settings-daemon ifupdown iproute libapt-inst1.4 libapt-pkg4.12
>   libbluetooth3 libcups2 libcupscgi1 libcupsdriver1 libcupsimage2
> libcupsmime1 libcupsppdc1 libcurl3 libcurl3-gnutls libcurl3-nss libdpkg-perl
> libgadu3 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 libgdk-pixbuf2.0-common
>   libgnome-control-center1 libgnutls26 libjson0 libmysqlclient18
> libnm-glib-vpn1 libnm-glib4 libnm-util2 libpurple-bin libpurple0 libqt4-dbus
> libqt4-declarative libqt4-network libqt4-opengl
>   libqt4-script libqt4-sql libqt4-sql-mysql libqt4-sql-sqlite libqt4-svg
> libqt4-xml libqt4-xmlpatterns libqtcore4 libqtgui4 libsnmp-base libsnmp15
> libssl-dev libssl-doc libssl1.0.0
>   libsyncdaemon-1.0-1 libtiff4 libxfont1 libxml2 libxml2-dev libxml2-utils
> linux-firmware linux-libc-dev mysql-common network-manager openssh-client
> openssh-server openssl python-imaging
>   python-libxml2 python-ubuntuone-client qdbus simple-scan ssh
> ssh-askpass-gnome synaptic thunderbird thunderbird-gnome-support tzdata
> ubuntuone-client unity-greeter update-manager
>   update-manager-core usb-creator-common usb-creator-gtk whoopsie
> 102 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 5 not to upgrade.
> Need to get 0 B/138 MB of archives.
> After this operation, 17.1 MB of additional disk space will be used.
> Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
> Extract templates from packages: 100%
> Preconfiguring packages ...
> (Reading database ...
> dpkg: warning: files list file for package `gcc-4.4-base' missing, assuming
> package has no files currently installed.

Googling for the error message suggests that re-installing them may be
a problem (see http://serverfault.com/questions/430682/dpkg-warning-files-list-file-for-package-x-missing).
The answer there includes a command that will automatically re-install
all the problematic packages, though I cannot personally vouch for it.

Colin