mutual dependencies are hindering any upgrade or removal

[the dsc]

The situation is with libc6 and libasound2...

I could try to explain all I did to reach where I'm at, but I don't recall step by step and might have lots of irrelevant data... (I actually was writing everything I could remember, but I've deleted when I thought of that)

Adept says that these installations are BROKEN (installed)

And at the early attempts to install them, the situation seemed that I couldn't install one due to its dependency with the other and vice-versa. I think that may worth mentioning that for some reason (perhaps for the same reason) direct upgrade wasn't working... so I tried to uninstall to then install the newer packages... in which I've succeeded at least partially, since it says they're installed...

...if I try to check the details and fix them, installing some required stuff, or uninstalling conflicting stuff, at one point adept package manager suggests to uninstall almost everything I have, about 2 GB of stuff The worst thing is that it may have uninstalled a bit already, I've canceled when I saw the 2GB of space going to be freed, but was already going... hopefully it was making some download before, and didn't uninstall anything...

It may be completely pointless to mention, but I've followed a few of the software's own instructions, which included trying to install via apt-get with the -f option. I did, everything was apparently going fine untill it says that there's something wrong with a totally unrelated package on the /var directory:

Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 128353 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking tzdata (from .../tzdata_2007b-1_all.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/tzdata_2007b-1_all.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite `/usr/share/zoneinfo/Canada/Atlantic', which is also in package locales
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/tzdata_2007b-1_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

The output of sudo dpkg --configure -a is:

dependency problems prevent configuration of libc6-dev:
 libc6-dev depends on libc6 (= 2.3.6.ds1-13etch2); however:
  Package libc6 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing libc6-dev (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libasound2:
 libasound2 depends on libc6 (>= 2.3.6-6); however:
  Package libc6 is not installed.
dpkg: error processing libasound2 (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 libc6-dev
 libasound2

And... it's hindering everything in the following way... if I go to adept, mark nothing to do, and go to see that "preview changes" list, there's these red marked things, plus libasound2-dev, and just that... then if I go back and chose to update, say, abiword, suddenly there will be tons of other actions added on the "preview changes" list, including uninstalling things such as xserver.xorg...

and there is marked to install the already mentioned tzdata... which is not installed... up to now, only -29 MB would be the result of the actions... but if I select to do nothing with this single package - to not install, to leave uninstalled, as it is - then a cascade of uninstallations sum to more than 2 GB... (that is, removing all this, if it's sounding ambiguous)

Tzdata definition is the following:

time zone and daylight-saving time data

This package contains data required for the implementation of standard local time for many representative locations around the globe. It is updated periodically to reflect changes made by political bodies to time zone boundaries, UTC offsets, and daylight-saving rules.

The god of the penguins must be kidding me

I think my installation is really messed up

I'm considering moving to debian if this installation doesn't work anymore after I restart... not immediately, but in the short future... but that's no one's problem anyway (unless debian is much harder for the newbie and the experts reading this are now yelling "noooooo! he'll come back with much more doubts!!!")

[the dsc]

I just need to tell that this whole problem isn't a problem anymore since, due to other issues, perhaps related with those (I don't know), I decided to give Debian Etch a try.

So I think this whole topic is useless now... I'm sorry.

[oz]

Hey, glad you got if all fixed!

Was it Kubuntu that was giving you the problems? I've personally always preferred vanilla Debian over the *buntus, but that's just me. I can see why they appeal to some people.

[the dsc]

Thanks

Only indirectly. I wanted to install skype, but it required packages that are not avaliable, at least not for drake. I've tried to install these packages, but all I've got was a major mess.

I put most of the blame on me, anyway, it's very likely that there is a way to do what I wanted to do, and I just didn't know how.

In debian etch almost everything is going fine, in the other hand. Only I'm not sure if I've succeeded with the installation of ntfs-3g - which isn't officially avaliable for (or appropriate to) Etch - and thus I'm thinking about upgrading to Lenny or to upgrade at least the kernel (if it's not actually the same thing...), fearing eventually damaging someone else's partition... I've read that by doing that would fix everything since its kernel is already "ntfs-3g-safe".

And there was a problem with the deja vu condensed fonts, but is fixed already. Besides that, it's exactly the same thing, except that it came with gnome by default (and a few other things in the session list, but may be part of gnome, such as "metacity", I haven't checked yet), while I prefer fluxbox and a few things from kde, like konqueror.