Problem with dist-upgrade

[xms2k2]

Well, I was attempting to run a dist-upgrade last night, Debian froze during the install process. I attempted it again 4 hours ago, same result, Debian froze (by freezing, I mean no response from the system at all). About 2 hours ago, I tried it once more and this time stayed to watch and kept doing things, it didnt freeze. Instead, I ended up with a nice error.

For the past hour I've searched without finding the fix to this error... can anyone help me out here. I'm new to Linux in general but have managed successful installs of Debian, Ubuntu, FC4, CentOS4 and the first one I ever did (wrong and right), Gentoo. I can find my way around fairly easy, but this time I'm just stumped.

I dont have the Dist-Upgrade results of earlier, but this is what it tells me right now.

Code: Select all

smurfsonecstasy:home/xms# apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  kdeadmin: Depends: knetworkconf (>= 4:3.5.0-4) but it is not installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.

apt-get -f install results in...

Code: Select all

smurfsonecstasy:/home/xms# apt-get -f install
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  knetworkconf
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  knetworkconf
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 381 not upgraded.
399 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B/594kB of archives.
After unpacking 1471kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Gnome
debconf: (Unable to load Gnome -- is libgnome2-perl installed?)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Dialog
(Reading database ... 117504 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking knetworkconf (from .../knetworkconf_4%3a3.5.0-4_i386.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/knetworkconf_4%3a3.5.0-4_i386.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite `/usr/lib/pkgconfig/system-tools-backends.pc', which is also in package gnome-system-tools
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/knetworkconf_4%3a3.5.0-4_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

This all leaves me at a loss because I'm yet to get used to the apt-get manner of doing things. Portage, I can do Gentoos Portage. I never liked using RPMs. Now I'm hoping to get used to apt-get since I dont feel like putting Gentoo back on one of the HDDs just yet...

Anyone have any advice?
Thanks in advance,
xms

P.S. Its downloading from unstable sources as opposed to stable or testing. I know this is probably the cause for the problem in the first place. But now its down to fixing the problem since I have no way of rewinding time ... yet.

[dnusinow]

This is a bug in the packages. Put knetworkconf on hold until it or gnome-system-tools is fixed. Alternately, remove gnome-system-tools if you're not using it until the bug is resolved.

[xms2k2]

i found a way around it removing kde and a few other packages that wouldnt remove due to dependencies (which led me in big circles, z depends on x, which depends on y, but y depends on z). after this, since i hadnt upgraded the kernel (not knowing it needed to be done), i had problems with hotplug and udev, managed to get the new kernel going but now i need to setup the sources and headers for that kernel, which i cant due since i have no wireless, since it requires me to use kernel sources and headers to compile the module

ill fix it, ive done it before. thanks for the help, it gave me the idea of removing various packages (kde never booted right on debian or ubuntu so ive always prefered gnome, hence why i didnt remove gnome-system-tools. ive always liked gnome more anyways so being on kde always annoys me a tad, but i do like having both installed in case im adventurous and decide kde is that days gui)

thanks again,
xms