Need Help With Slightly Borked Debian Testing System

[Brian Cluff]

It sounds like your upgrade didn't finish and has left your computer 
broken.  I believe all you need to do is get your system to complete 
it's upgrade and all will be well again.

I would definitely try using apt-get... try "apt-get -f install" to 
start and see if it will fix any of the missing packages.  Then follow 
that with and "apt-get dist-upgrade" to hopefully finish the upgrade.

You might find that the dependencies are in a state that you will have 
to hand install and/or downgrade certain packages using dpkg to get the 
system back into a place where apt can pick up and finish the install. 
If you haven't done an apt-get clean or aptitude clean recently then you 
will likely find older and newer versions of packages in 
/var/cache/apt/archives/ have can be fed to dpkg.

I also recommend ditching aptitude.  Years ago it looked like it was 
going to take over for apt but it never did.  In fact many of the 
utilities that switched to aptitude switched back to apt.  I've found 
that I tended to break systems quite often when I used aptitude but apt 
remained solid and has since picked up the majority of extra features 
that aptitude used to has.

Brian

On 03/03/2014 07:24 PM, Mark Phillips wrote:
> I am running Debian testing on my laptop. I use my laptop in two
> configurations - stand alone and with an external monitor and bluetooth
> keyboard and mouse. Everything was working in that I could switch back
> and forth as needed.
>
> I then had a need to write a bunch of documents/emails in German so I
> tried to add a German keyboard mapping and dictionary to the system. I
> was successful and could switch back and forth between German and
> English in LibreOffice and Gmail using the external keyboard.
>
> I then ran an aptitude update and then an upgrade and the world collapsed.
> * I no longer have gnome 3, but a fall back version of gnome 2.
>
> * I can type correctly with the external keyboard, but the keyboard on
> the laptop is all messed up. The keys do not type what is printed on the
> keys.
>
> * I don't have a German keyboard mapping any more.
>
> I googled for some solutions, ran some dpkg-reconfigures but I just
> cannot get the laptop keyboard to work properly, nor get back to gnome
> 3. When I run an aptitude update and then upgrade now, I get this
>
> # aptitude upgrade
> Resolving dependencies...
> open: 8922; closed: 14679; defer: 68; conflict: 194
>
> and the conflicts are never resolved - the numbers just keep changing
> and the cpus are pegged at 100%.
>
> apt-get upgrade shows many packages to be upgraded, and does not report
> any dependency issues.
>
> Should I try apt-get upgrade to see if it fixes the problem? How do I go
> about fixing the keyboard and gnome 3 issues?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Mark
>
>
>
>
>
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