cannot install gcc

[John R. Sowden]

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)

John