6.3.2 APT upgrade troubleshooting
Package dependency problems may occur when upgrading in unstable
or testing as described in Upgrading, Section 5.3. Most of
the time this is because a package that will be upgraded Depends on a package
that is not yet available. These problems are fixed by using
# aptitude dist-upgrade
If this does not work, then repeat one of the following until the problem
resolves itself:
# aptitude -f upgrade # continue upgrade even after error
... or
# aptitude -f dist-upgrade # continue dist-upgrade even after error
Some really broken upgrade scripts may cause persistent trouble. It is usually
better to resolve this type of situation by inspecting the
/var/lib/dpkg/info/packagename.{post,pre}{inst,rm}
scripts of the offending package and then running:
# dpkg --configure -a # configures all partially installed packages
If a script complains about a missing configuration file, look in
/etc/ for the corresponding configuration file. If one exists
with an extension of .dpkg-new (or something similar),
mv it to remove the suffix.
Package dependency problems may occur when installing in unstable
or testing. There are ways to circumvent dependencies.
# aptitude -f install package # override broken dependencies
An alternative method to fix these situations is to use the equivs
package. See /usr/share/doc/equivs/README.Debian and The equivs package, Section 6.5.2.
