Hi Leslie,

You're mostly on bookworm and bookworm-security and bookworm-backports but you've also got Sid (Unstable) in there.

It looks to me like you're configured to prefer installed versions of packages but if a package is not installed to prefer higher version numbers, i.e. Sid rather than Bookworm.

I suggest you try one but not both of the following according as to whether you personally - aside from apt preferences - would rather have Sid packages or Bookworm packages.

apt --dry-run install qpdf/sid libqpdf30/sid apt --dry-run install qpdf/bookworm libqpdf30/bookworm

If it looks like it would do what you want then run it again without the --dry-run.

--Mike

On Sun September 20 2026 23:59:22 J Leslie Turriff via tde-users wrote:

On 2026-09-20 23:30:55 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:

...

You're mostly on bookworm and bookworm-security and bookworm-backports but you've also got Sid (Unstable) in there.

It looks to me like you're configured to prefer installed versions of packages but if a package is not installed to prefer higher version numbers, i.e. Sid rather than Bookworm.

That's right. openSUSE seems not to have a problem with that philosophy,

Hi Leslie,

(I also read your subsequent messages but I choose to reply to this.)

I was hoping to find a simple solution but I do not see one. You're in a complicated situation. Your direction to Debian to prefer old Bookworm packages if already present otherwise new Sid packages if not present places apt in an impossible position where it is not allowed to upgrade old packages to satisfy new dependencies. Also you have skipped over Trixie/Stable and therefore skipped various transitions and those skipped transitions now result in filename conflicts.

If you had followed Sid/Unstable you'd be OK. If you had followed Bookworm/Stable to Trixie/Stable you'd be OK. But you have a mixture.

I suggest you focus on one release. Trixie/Stable is the best choice.

A dist-upgrade from Bookworm/Stable to Trixie/Stable might work, but given the complexity of the situation, if I were upgrading your system I would expect to have to spend a day or two working around package conflicts as they arise. (It would depend how many Sid packages are present in the mix.)

If you decide to upgrade from Bookworm to Trixie be sure to read the release notes first. But even so, with Sid in the mix, you are going to encounter problems that others have not.

In future, if you really need one or two packages from Sid or Testing, you should use apt preferences to ensure that only the desired packages are upgraded to Sid or Testing.

--Mike

On 2026-09-21 04:11:37 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:

On Sun September 20 2026 23:59:22 J Leslie Turriff via tde-users wrote:

...

On 2026-09-20 23:30:55 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:

...

You're mostly on bookworm and bookworm-security and bookworm-backports but you've also got Sid (Unstable) in there.

It looks to me like you're configured to prefer installed versions of packages but if a package is not installed to prefer higher version numbers, i.e. Sid rather than Bookworm.

That's right. openSUSE seems not to have a problem with that philosophy,

Hi Leslie,

(I also read your subsequent messages but I choose to reply to this.)

I was hoping to find a simple solution but I do not see one. You're in a complicated situation. Your direction to Debian to prefer old Bookworm packages if already present otherwise new Sid packages if not present places apt in an impossible position where it is not allowed to upgrade old packages to satisfy new dependencies. Also you have skipped over Trixie/Stable and therefore skipped various transitions and those skipped transitions now result in filename conflicts.

If you had followed Sid/Unstable you'd be OK. If you had followed Bookworm/Stable to Trixie/Stable you'd be OK. But you have a mixture.

I suggest you focus on one release. Trixie/Stable is the best choice.

A dist-upgrade from Bookworm/Stable to Trixie/Stable might work, but given the complexity of the situation, if I were upgrading your system I would expect to have to spend a day or two working around package conflicts as they arise. (It would depend how many Sid packages are present in the mix.)

If you decide to upgrade from Bookworm to Trixie be sure to read the release notes first. But even so, with Sid in the mix, you are going to encounter problems that others have not.

In future, if you really need one or two packages from Sid or Testing, you should use apt preferences to ensure that only the desired packages are upgraded to Sid or Testing.

--Mike

Okay. I've been just feeling my way through this stuff until, as you see, I've shot myself in the foot. To be honest, much of the terminology doesn't mean much to me, so I'm oblivious to many of their ramifications.

As Nik has suggested, I'll remove the reference to sid (a single line). Is there a command I can use to list all of the sid-based packages that are installed?

Leslie

On 2026-09-21 17:14:36 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp via tde-users wrote:

Anno domini 2026 Mon, 21 Sep 16:58:58 -0400 After you removed the sid reference: # apt update

You might want to run this to clean up the dependencies first: # apt-mark minimize-manual

And then this gives you a list of all manually installed packages that do not exist in the repository: # apt-mark showmanual $(apt-show-versions | grep -v '(not installed|uptodate)' | cut -d ' ' -f 1)

Now you can eiter purge these packages or reinstall them.

Nik

apt-show-versions is not installed and apt won't let me install it because of 'unmet dependencies' but after running apt fix-broken install as the system continually suggests, I see that the problem packages are

kspy-trinity libglib2.0-dev libpoppler156 libpoppler162 libreoffice-calc libreoffice-core

but when I try to remove or purge them I again get

E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

so do I need to specify some options for remove or purge to get around this? or 'specify a solution'?

Leslie

On 2026-09-21 21:38:40 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:

On Mon September 21 2026 17:25:09 J Leslie Turriff via tde-users wrote:

...

apt-show-versions is not installed and apt won't let me install it because of 'unmet dependencies' but after running apt fix-broken install as the system continually suggests, I see that the problem packages are

kspy-trinity libglib2.0-dev libpoppler156 libpoppler162 libreoffice-calc libreoffice-core

but when I try to remove or purge them I again get

E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

so do I need to specify some options for remove or purge to get around this? or 'specify a solution'?

Leslie ____________________________________________________ tde-users mailing list -- users@trinitydesktop.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@trinitydesktop.org Web mail archive available at https://mail.trinitydesktop.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/users@trinitydes kt op.org

libpoppler162 is in unstable. libpoppler156 probably used to be in unstable but now only exists in the x32 port. libpoppler147 is the trixie package. It looks like the bookworm package is libpoppler126. You could try installing that and see if it allows you to progress with removing the unwanted libpopplers.

Also you can use "dpkg --dry-run --purge libglib2.0-dev" to see what is preventing that package from being removed.

@19:18:16 root@toreador wd=/root ● dpkg --dry-run --purge libglib2.0-dev dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove libglib2.0-dev which is not installed rc=0

So the various tools are conflicted as to what packages are installed. Now what?

Do you have a lot of dev packages installed?

Not on purpose. I attach snapshots from Synaptic.

Leslie

At this stage purging with a low level tool like dpkg may work better than removing with a high level tool like apt.

--Mike

On 2026-09-22 21:39:56 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:

On Tue September 22 2026 17:32:32 J Leslie Turriff via tde-users wrote:

...

On 2026-09-21 21:38:40 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:

...

On Mon September 21 2026 17:25:09 J Leslie Turriff via tde-users wrote:

...

apt-show-versions is not installed and apt won't let me install it because of 'unmet dependencies' but after running apt fix-broken install as the system continually suggests, I see that the problem packages are

kspy-trinity libglib2.0-dev libpoppler156 libpoppler162 libreoffice-calc libreoffice-core

but when I try to remove or purge them I again get

E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

so do I need to specify some options for remove or purge to get around this? or 'specify a solution'?

Leslie ____________________________________________________ tde-users mailing list -- users@trinitydesktop.org To unsubscribe send an email to users-leave@trinitydesktop.org Web mail archive available at https://mail.trinitydesktop.org/mailman3/hyperkitty/list/users@trinit yd es kt op.org

libpoppler162 is in unstable. libpoppler156 probably used to be in unstable but now only exists in the x32 port. libpoppler147 is the trixie package. It looks like the bookworm package is libpoppler126. You could try installing that and see if it allows you to progress with removing the unwanted libpopplers.

Also you can use "dpkg --dry-run --purge libglib2.0-dev" to see what is preventing that package from being removed.

@19:18:16 root@toreador wd=/root ● dpkg --dry-run --purge libglib2.0-dev dpkg: warning: ignoring request to remove libglib2.0-dev which is not installed rc=0

So the various tools are conflicted as to what packages are installed. Now what?

You reported that "apt --fix-broken install" told you a half dozen problem packages but you didn't tell us - maybe apt didn't tell you -

• what the problems are with those packages.

I suggest you try installing libpoppler126 from bookworm. Then once again "apt --fix-broken install" and post the full output. If apt won't let you install libpoppler126, try downloading it with apt and then installing it with "dpkg -i".

--Mike

So:

@21:25:18 root@toreador wd=/root ● apt update Hit:1 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm InRelease Get:2 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates InRelease [55.4 kB] Get:3 http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-backports InRelease [59.4 kB] Get:4 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security InRelease [34.8 kB] Get:5 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main Sources [252 kB] Get:6 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main amd64 Packages [341 kB] Get:7 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main Translation-en [214 kB] Hit:8 http://repo.matrixos.ca bookworm InRelease Hit:9 http://tde-mirror.yosemite.net/trinity/deb/trinity-r14.1.x bookworm InRelease Hit:10 https://notesalexp.org/debian/bookworm bookworm InRelease Fetched 957 kB in 2s (430 kB/s) Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done 498 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them. rc=0 @21:25:31 root@toreador wd=/root ● apt-get install libpoppler126 Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these. The following packages have unmet dependencies: kspy-trinity : Depends: tdelibs14-trinity-dev but it is not going to be installed libpoppler-cpp0v5 : Depends: libpoppler126 (= 22.12.0-2+deb12u1) but 22.12.0-2+deb12u3 is to be installed libpoppler-glib8 : Depends: libpoppler126 (= 22.12.0-2+deb12u1) but 22.12.0-2+deb12u3 is to be installed libpoppler156 : Depends: libcurl4-gnutls (>= 8.20.0-3~) but it is not installable libpoppler162 : Depends: libcurl4-gnutls (>= 8.20.0-3~) but it is not installable libreoffice-calc : Depends: coinor-libcoinmp0 but it is not installable Depends: libmd4c-html0 (>= 0.4.4) but it is not going to be installed Depends: liborcus-0.21-0 (>= 0.21.0) but it is not installable Depends: liborcus-parser-0.21-0 (>= 0.21.0) but it is not installable Recommends: liborcus-0.21-0 (>= 0.21.0-5) but it is not installable libreoffice-core : Depends: libclucene-contribs1t64 (>= 2.3.3.4+dfsg) but it is not installable Depends: libclucene-core1t64 (>= 2.3.3.4+dfsg) but it is not installable Depends: libcmis-0.6-6t64 (>= 0.6.1) but it is not installable Depends: libexttextcat-2.0-1 (>= 2.2-8) but it is not installable Depends: libhunspell-1.7-0 (>= 1.7.3+really1.7.3) but 1.7.2+really1.7.2-11+b1 is to be installed Depends: libmythes-1.2-0 (>= 2:1.2.6) but 2:1.2.5-2+b1 is to be installed Depends: liborcus-0.21-0 (>= 0.21.0) but it is not installable Depends: liborcus-parser-0.21-0 (>= 0.21.0) but it is not installable Depends: librdf0t64 (>= 1.0.17) but it is not installable Depends: libxmlsec1-10310 (>= 1.2.35) but it is not installable Depends: libxmlsec1-nss10310 (>= 1.2.31) but it is not installable Depends: libzxing4 (>= 3.0) but it is not installable Recommends: afdko-bin but it is not going to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution). rc=100 @21:25:41 root@toreador wd=/root ● apt-get download libpoppler126 Get:1 http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security/main amd64 libpoppler126 amd64 22.12.0-2+deb12u3 [1,856 kB] Fetched 1,856 kB in 0s (4,092 kB/s) W: Download is performed unsandboxed as root as file '/root/libpoppler126_22.12.0-2+deb12u3_amd64.deb' couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'. - pkgAcquire::Run (13: Permission denied) rc=0 @21:27:01 root@toreador wd=/root ● dpkg -i libpoppler126_22.12.0-2+deb12u3_amd64.deb (Reading database… 238981 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to unpack libpoppler126_22.12.0-2+deb12u3_amd64.deb… Unpacking libpoppler126:amd64 (22.12.0-2+deb12u3) over (22.12.0-2+deb12u1)… Setting up libpoppler126:amd64 (22.12.0-2+deb12u3)… Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.43-6)… rc=0

Looks like that worked? Now I should once again do 'apt --fix-broken install' again?

Leslie

I find this thread very interresting as I learn a lot about apt & friends.

But would it not be easier (and faster) to reinstall cleanly?

Thierry

On Wednesday 23 September 2026 00:54:12 Thierry de Coulon via tde-users wrote:

I find this thread very interresting as I learn a lot about apt & friends.

But would it not be easier (and faster) to reinstall cleanly?

Thierry

+1

I was thinking this, too, but have hesitated jumping into the discussion.

Also, I would go farther than others have suggested, regarding what repositories to use, what release versions to install, etc. I upgrade from one LTS version to another, and don't bother with the in-between releases. Once your current release becomes oldstable, upgrade to the next LTS stable version.

Unless one is a developer, or has some pressing need to stay absolutely up-to-date with the most bleeding-edge changes, there is little reason to use sid, unstable, experimental, or others.

Besides taking sid out of your sources.list, you might try specifically purging sid packages using apt, apt-get or aptitude, but I am not sure what commands would single out sid packages to remove. Others might help you with that. Also, you might try using these sorts of commands: sudo apt-get -t bookworm install <package names> sudo apt-get -t bookworm purge <package names> (-t refers to the target release)

If this still doesn't clean up those sid packages, then you might be better off starting over with a fresh installation. Since you have mixed bookworm with sid releases, you might have got yourself into an untenable situation. If your system cannot resolve those conflicts, then you could spend days upon days mired in the quicksand of hopelessness.

The manpages are your best friend. man apt man apt-get man aptitude

Also, keep notes of what you are doing. I have text files that track my installations, so that I can avoid making the same mistakes next time. After awhile, I no longer need to refer to my notes, because I have eliminated those problems.

Nowadays, I can go for a year or two without doing an actual system reinstallation; to the point where I half-forget exactly what I did last time. (Another good reason to keep notes on your installations ...) I just keep upgrading from one LTS release to another, usually without ever doing a complete system reinstallation.

Bill

On Mon September 21 2026 13:58:58 J Leslie Turriff via tde-users wrote:

As Nik has suggested, I'll remove the reference to sid (a single line). Is there a command I can use to list all of the sid-based packages that are installed?

You probably don't have apt-show-versions installed so first do:

apt update apt install apt-show-versions/bullseye

Then:

apt-show-versions | grep -v '/bullseye' | grep -v 'not installed$'

--Mike

On 2026-09-21 18:26:02 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:

Correction: bookworm, not bullseye

Yeah, thought so.

Leslie

On Mon September 21 2026 15:10:31 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:

...

On Mon September 21 2026 13:58:58 J Leslie Turriff via tde-users wrote:

...

As Nik has suggested, I'll remove the reference to sid (a single line). Is there a command I can use to list all of the sid-based packages that are installed?

You probably don't have apt-show-versions installed so first do:

apt update apt install apt-show-versions/bullseye

Then:

apt-show-versions | grep -v '/bullseye' | grep -v 'not installed$'

On 2026-09-20 23:30:55 Mike Bird via tde-users wrote:

Hi Leslie,

You're mostly on bookworm and bookworm-security and bookworm-backports but you've also got Sid (Unstable) in there.

It looks to me like you're configured to prefer installed versions of packages but if a package is not installed to prefer higher version numbers, i.e. Sid rather than Bookworm.

I suggest you try one but not both of the following according as to whether you personally - aside from apt preferences - would rather have Sid packages or Bookworm packages.

apt --dry-run install qpdf/sid libqpdf30/sid apt --dry-run install qpdf/bookworm libqpdf30/bookworm

If it looks like it would do what you want then run it again without the --dry-run.

--Mike

Here's the output from those commands:

@02:31:06 root@toreador wd=/root ● apt --dry-run install qpdf/sid libqpdf30/sid Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done Selected version '12.4.1-1' (Debian:unstable [amd64]) for 'qpdf' Selected version '12.4.1-1' (Debian:unstable [amd64]) for 'libqpdf30' You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these. The following packages have unmet dependencies: kspy-trinity : Depends: tdelibs14-trinity-dev but it is not going to be installed libpoppler156 : Depends: libcurl4-gnutls (>= 8.20.0-3~) but it is not going to be installed libpoppler162 : Depends: libcurl4-gnutls (>= 8.20.0-3~) but it is not going to be installed libreoffice-calc : Depends: coinor-libcoinmp0 but it is not going to be installed Depends: libmd4c-html0 (>= 0.4.4) but it is not going to be installed Depends: liborcus-0.21-0 (>= 0.21.0) but it is not going to be installed Depends: liborcus-parser-0.21-0 (>= 0.21.0) but it is not going to be installed Recommends: liborcus-0.21-0 (>= 0.21.0-5) but it is not going to be installed libreoffice-core : Depends: libclucene-contribs1t64 (>= 2.3.3.4+dfsg) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libclucene-core1t64 (>= 2.3.3.4+dfsg) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libcmis-0.6-6t64 (>= 0.6.1) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libexttextcat-2.0-1 (>= 2.2-8) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libhunspell-1.7-0 (>= 1.7.3+really1.7.3) but 1.7.2+really1.7.2-11+b1 is to be installed Depends: libmythes-1.2-0 (>= 2:1.2.6) but 2:1.2.5-2+b1 is to be installed Depends: liborcus-0.21-0 (>= 0.21.0) but it is not going to be installed Depends: liborcus-parser-0.21-0 (>= 0.21.0) but it is not going to be installed Depends: librdf0t64 (>= 1.0.17) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libxmlsec1-10310 (>= 1.2.35) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libxmlsec1-nss10310 (>= 1.2.31) but it is not going to be installed Depends: libzxing4 (>= 3.0) but it is not going to be installed Recommends: afdko-bin but it is not going to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution). rc=100 @02:33:22 root@toreador wd=/root ● apt --dry-run install qpdf/bookworm libqpdf30/bookworm Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree... Done Reading state information... Done Package libqpdf30 is not available, but is referred to by another package. This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or is only available from another source

E: Release 'bookworm' for 'libqpdf30' was not found rc=100

Leslie

On 2026-09-21 08:33:15 Slávek Banko via tde-users wrote:

Hi Leslie,

is there a specific reason why you want to install version 12.4.1 from unstable (SID) instead of version 11.3.0 from Bookworm, given that you are using Bookworm? Since Bookworm uses qpdf version 11.3.x, the corresponding SO library is an older version — specifically version 29, i.e., package libqpdf29.

You could try: apt --dry-run install qpdf/bookworm libqpdf29/bookworm

Cheers Slávek

Probably because I found a package I wanted only in sid. Mostly the reason is ignorance on my part. I've been looking through the Debian documentation, but picking out the information I need to fully understand the repository architecture.

Leslie

On 2026-09-21 02:59:06 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp via tde-users wrote:

Anno domini 2026 Sun, 20 Sep 20:29:43 -0400

J Leslie Turriff via tde-users scripsit:

...

Trying to install qpdf, I get an error:  qpdf : Depends: libqpdf30 (> 12.4.1~) but it is not going to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

Apparently my package database has become corrupted?  I tried the suggestion but it's not helping.

Please post you /etc/apt/sources.list or /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*

Nik

@02:30:46 root@toreador wd=/root ● cat /etc/apt/sources.list{,.d/*} # matrixOS main repo deb http://repo.matrixos.ca/ bookworm main

# See https://wiki.debian.org/SourcesList for more information. deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main non-free non-free-firmware contrib deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm main non-free non-free-firmware contrib

deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main non-free non-free-firmware contrib deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-updates main non-free non-free-firmware contrib

deb-src http://security.debian.org/debian-security/ bookworm-security main non-free non-free-firmware contrib deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security/ bookworm-security main non-free non-free-firmware contrib

# Backports allows you to install newer versions of software made available for this release deb http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-backports main non-free non-free-firmware contrib deb-src http://deb.debian.org/debian/ bookworm-backports main non-free non-free-firmware contrib

# Trinity Desktop Environment Debian Repos deb http://mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org/trinity/deb/trinity-r14.1.x/ bookworm main deps deb-src http://mirror.ppa.trinitydesktop.org/trinity/deb/trinity-r14.1.x/ bookworm main deps

# Other repos deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian/ sid main

Types: deb URIs: https://notesalexp.org/debian/bookworm/ Suites: bookworm Components: main Architectures: amd64 Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/alexp_key.gpg rc=0

Leslie

I will take out the sid reference, then, since it is only a single line.

Leslie

On 2026-09-21 04:37:41 Dr. Nikolaus Klepp via tde-users wrote:

Ok, this will not work: you can mix trixie and sid, but not bookworm and sid. So you'll first have to upgrade to rixie befor this is gonna work - or you remove the sid sources.

Nik