Utilities apparently missing from Ubuntu15.10

[Colin Law]

On 31 October 2015 at 16:48, Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 31/10/2015, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 31 October 2015 at 12:12, Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 31/10/2015, Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 31 October 2015 at 09:38, Bret Busby <bret.busby at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> ...
>>>>> Synaptic did not install using apt-get, due to unmet dependencies
>>>>
>>>> That is a surprising bug which should be reported.  I don't suppose
>>>> you kept a record of the output.  Unfortunately to late to easily
>>>> repeat the exercise as you have now installed it anyway.
>>>>
>>>> Colin
>>>>
>>>
>>> Since it is said to be a bug that should be reported....
>>>
>>> Would some log file exist, that would have retained the output, that
>>> would allow me to retrieve the output, to forward on to the relevant
>>> people?
>>
>> Probably, not sure exactly what though.  Can you tell us exactly the
>> command you entered (in the terminal if you press up arrow it shows
>> you previous commands so you may be able to get  back to it like
>> that).  Preferably copy/paste it from the terminal.  If you run it
>> again, what does it say?
>>
>> Colin
>>
>
> I had used "sudo apt-get install synaptic" , as suggested, but I doubt
> that I would now be able to reproduce the error output, given that the
> package is now successfully installed, using the Software Centre, as
> previously mentioned, and, I assume that the success of the
> installation of Synaptic, in using the Software Centre, will have
> eliminated the unmet dependencies problem.

Probably.  Worth trying again with apt-get just in case it shows anything silly.
The logs for apt-get are in /var/log/apt/term.log but I think that
only shows the actual operations performed, not ones that did not get
as far as doing anything.

If you are up for a little investigation, which should not mess up
your machine, first remove any packages that are no longer in use by:

sudo apt-get autoremove

Then remove synaptic

sudo apt-get remove --purge synaptic

then autoremove again
sudo apt-get autoremove
note what it removes, I would expect libept.  then install synaptic again
sudo apt-get install synaptic

Colin