Bug#798341: [inkscape] impossible to install inkscape

[Mattia Rizzolo]

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 11:03:25PM +0000, Diego Alejandro Agudelo España wrote:
> First of all I want to apologize beforehand if I'm breaking any rule or
> protocol for reporting bugs in Debian, it's the first time I'm
> writing/reporting a problem here.
> 
> I noticed that you marked this ticket as closed but after reading this
> thread I'm still unable to install Inkscape in Debian testing. The error
> message I got is similiar to the message reported by Marco Righi, which is:

Indeed, let me assure you no bug is currently in place (well, at least
this one is not), and that any support forum might be very well able to
help you resolve this.

Anyway, let me give you some hints and let's see whether we're able to
sort it out.

> The following packages have unmet dependencies:
>  inkscape : Depends: libatkmm-1.6-1v5 (>= 2.22.1) but it is not going to be installed
>             Depends: libcairomm-1.0-1v5 (>= 1.6.4) but it is not going to be installed
>             Depends: libglibmm-2.4-1v5 (>= 2.44.0) but it is not going to be installed
>             Depends: libgtkmm-2.4-1v5 (>= 1:2.24.0) but it is not going to be installed
>             Depends: libpangomm-1.4-1v5 (>= 2.36.0) but it is not going to be installed
>             Depends: libsigc++-2.0-0v5 (>= 2.2.0) but it is not going to be installed
> E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Ok, so according to you you don't have any other repository enabled.
I can believe you: I hade several problems too, and I had to manually do
something, even if I don't use any other external repository, that's
because I had a locally built package that was blocking things.
Another common case is a library that got manually installed for
whatever reason: if that the case apt won't easily propose you a
solution including removing them, while in this case might be needed.

The workthrough I'm suggesting you to persue is:
 1) try to tell apt to install all those package it does not want to
    install, other than installing the singular
 2) if it still complain take one library per time still giving problems
    and force apt to install it
 3) you'll arrive at some point where it propose you to remove some
    pacakages; this can mean either half of your system or a handful of
    packages
  3a) if they are only a handful of leaf packages just remove them,
      you'll try reinstalling them later, once you resolved this other
      problem
  3b) if it's half of the system then reand that list throughly, and
      look for "suspicious" packages, that means packages installed
      locally, manually built, coming from other repository you removed,
      and big leaf packages that might cause issues (I mean, "big"
      end-user applications, like sigil.  Most probably the faulty
      package is also outdated.  Ask apt to explicitely update it, or
      remove it.
 4) goto 1

If everything is good I suggest you to mark as automatically installed
every package other than inkscape itself, so that apt can be more ease
with them and treat them as a real library, something that can come and
go:

$ sudo apt-mark auto $pkg1 $pkg2 $pkg3 $pkgN


In my case I was in the 3b situation, reviewing that list made me notice
a locally build scribus package, and some other stuff I just removed and
fixed to get them back later on.
It may look hard to do but trust me is not :)
It just requires some time if you're not used to keep apt in your hands,
but nothing to be scared about :)

> Do you guys have any suggestion to fix this?
> 
> I'm open to provide more details about my particular system configuration.

Please try this and see where you end.  Hopefully you'll find what is
blocking you.
I'd like to at least see whether I can help somebody keeping his system
working...


:)

-- 
regards,
                        Mattia Rizzolo

GPG Key: 66AE 2B4A FCCF 3F52 DA18  4D18 4B04 3FCD B944 4540      .''`.
more about me:  http://mapreri.org                              : :'  :
Launchpad user: https://launchpad.net/~mapreri                  `. `'`
Debian QA page: https://qa.debian.org/developer.php?login=mattia  `-
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