[Solved] x86 Ubuntu install trouble / dependencies

[YFZdude]

Pi Model or other hardware: x86
RetroPie Version Used: 4.7.15
Built From: Manual install over Ubuntu 20.04.2

Here is what I did (the second attempt this is...)

-Install Ubuntu 20.04.2
-choose minimal install, tick box for third party drivers
-sudo apt update && upgrade
-sudo apt install -y git dialog unzip xmlstarlet
-git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup.git
-sudo RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh

Then I receive the error:

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 build-essential : Depends: libc6-dev but it is not going to be installed or
                            libc-dev
 g++ : Depends: g++-9 (>= 9.3.0-3~) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
Unable to install packages required by /home/jack/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_packages.sh - Could not install package(s): subversion curl gcc g++ build-essential python3-pyudev.

So I type:
sudo apt install libc6-dev

and receive:

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libc6-dev : Depends: libc6 (= 2.31-0ubuntu9) but 2.31-0ubuntu9.2 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

So I am determined to get the right package version, type:
sudo apt install libc6=2.31-0ubuntu9

This downgrades the package and I can now run the Setup script. So run the script and choose to manage packages and install all core packages.

This fails to install emulationstation or retroarch. Here is snippet of log:

Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libasound2-dev : Depends: libasound2 (= 1.2.2-2.1)
 libpulse-dev : Depends: libpulse0 (= 1:13.99.1-1ubuntu3.8) but 1:13.99.1-1ubuntu3.10 is to be installed
                Depends: libpulse-mainloop-glib0 (= 1:13.99.1-1ubuntu3.8) but 1:13.99.1-1ubuntu3.10 is to be installed
                Depends: libglib2.0-dev but it is not going to be installed
 libsdl2-dev : Depends: libegl1-mesa-dev but it is not going to be installed
               Depends: libgl1-mesa-dev but it is not going to be installed
               Depends: libgles2-mesa-dev but it is not going to be installed
               Depends: libglu1-mesa-dev but it is not going to be installed
               Depends: libibus-1.0-dev but it is not going to be installed
 libudev-dev : Depends: libudev1 (= 245.4-4ubuntu3) but 245.4-4ubuntu3.4 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Last time this happened (1st attempt on a normal install type) I downgraded libasound2-data to the expected version and in the process it removed my desktop environment. I didn't figure that out until after installing the rest of RetroPie and rebooting.

Here is what apt says about libasound2-data downgrade:

 sudo apt install libasound2-data=1.2.2-2.1
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  apg apturl-common cheese-common espeak-ng-data evolution-data-server-common fprintd geoclue-2.0 gir1.2-accountsservice-1.0 gir1.2-atspi-2.0
  gir1.2-dbusmenu-glib-0.4 gir1.2-dee-1.0 gir1.2-gck-1 gir1.2-gcr-3 gir1.2-gdm-1.0 gir1.2-geoclue-2.0 gir1.2-goa-1.0 gir1.2-graphene-1.0
  gir1.2-gstreamer-1.0 gir1.2-gweather-3.0 gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-4.0 gir1.2-json-1.0 gir1.2-nm-1.0 gir1.2-nma-1.0 gir1.2-rsvg-2.0
  gir1.2-snapd-1 gir1.2-soup-2.4 gir1.2-unity-5.0 gir1.2-upowerglib-1.0 gir1.2-webkit2-4.0 gkbd-capplet gnome-control-center-faces
  gnome-online-accounts gnome-session-bin gnome-session-common gnome-shell-common gnome-startup-applications gstreamer1.0-clutter-3.0
  iio-sensor-proxy libao-common libao4 libappindicator3-1 libboost-thread1.71.0 libbrlapi0.7 libcamel-1.2-62 libcheese8 libclutter-1.0-0
  libclutter-1.0-common libclutter-gst-3.0-0 libclutter-gtk-1.0-0 libcogl-common libcogl-pango20 libcogl-path20 libcogl20 libcolord-gtk1
  libdotconf0 libebackend-1.2-10 libebook-1.2-20 libebook-contacts-1.2-3 libecal-2.0-1 libedata-book-1.2-26 libedata-cal-2.0-1
  libedataserver-1.2-24 libedataserverui-1.2-2 libfftw3-single3 libfprint-2-2 libgdm1 libgeoclue-2-0 libgeocode-glib0 libgles2
  libgnomekbd-common libgnomekbd8 libgoa-backend-1.0-1 libgssdp-1.2-0 libgupnp-1.2-0 libgupnp-av-1.0-2 libgupnp-dlna-2.0-3 libgweather-3-16
  libgweather-common libmediaart-2.0-0 libpam-fprintd libpcre2-32-0 libphonenumber7 libprotobuf17 libpulse-mainloop-glib0 libpulsedsp
  librygel-core-2.6-2 librygel-db-2.6-2 librygel-renderer-2.6-2 librygel-server-2.6-2 libsbc1 libsnapd-glib1 libsodium23 libsonic0 libsoxr0
  libspeechd2 libspeexdsp1 libsysmetrics1 libwebrtc-audio-processing1 libxcb-res0 libxkbcommon-x11-0 libxklavier16
  mobile-broadband-provider-info mutter-common network-manager-gnome policykit-1-gnome pulseaudio-utils python3-brlapi python3-click
  python3-colorama python3-dateutil python3-debconf python3-debian python3-louis python3-macaroonbakery python3-nacl python3-protobuf
  python3-pyatspi python3-pymacaroons python3-rfc3339 python3-software-properties python3-speechd python3-tz python3-xdg python3-xkit rtkit
  rygel software-properties-common sound-icons sound-theme-freedesktop switcheroo-control unattended-upgrades update-notifier-common xbrlapi
  xwayland
Use 'sudo apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  policykit-1-gnome
Suggested packages:
  alsa-utils
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  alsa-utils apturl brltty evolution-data-server gdm3 gir1.2-gnomebluetooth-1.0 gir1.2-mutter-6 gnome-bluetooth gnome-control-center
  gnome-disk-utility gnome-initial-setup gnome-screenshot gnome-session-canberra gnome-settings-daemon gnome-shell
  gnome-shell-extension-appindicator gnome-shell-extension-desktop-icons gnome-shell-extension-ubuntu-dock gstreamer1.0-alsa libasound2
  libasound2-plugins libatopology2 libcanberra-gtk3-0 libcanberra-gtk3-module libcanberra-pulse libcanberra0 libcheese-gtk25 libespeak-ng1
  libgnome-bluetooth13 libgsound0 libmutter-6-0 libpcaudio0 mutter nautilus-share orca pulseaudio pulseaudio-module-bluetooth
  software-properties-gtk speech-dispatcher speech-dispatcher-audio-plugins speech-dispatcher-espeak-ng spice-vdagent ubuntu-desktop
  ubuntu-desktop-minimal ubuntu-drivers-common ubuntu-release-upgrader-gtk ubuntu-session update-manager update-notifier
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  policykit-1-gnome
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
  libasound2-data
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 1 downgraded, 49 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 44.0 kB of archives.
After this operation, 54.0 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 

EDIT: So my question is what happened, and do I need to wait for an update to package dependencies information or is this result and the manual re-install of the desktop environment the way to go?
I've done manual install before on this type of PC and didn't have trouble like this back then.
:-/

[mitu]

@yfzdude said in x86 Ubuntu install trouble / dependencies:

E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages

This looks like the relevant error. Do you have any held packages ? Any 3rd party repos ?

[YFZdude]

@mitu
I'm not sure how to tell if I do. Is there a way to list them out? I didn't edit the sources file for apt. It should be the stock file.

This is from a clean OS install with no extra steps between first boot up and running the RetroPie manual install process as written on the Docs page. The only thing you might call unusual is that I declined to connect to a network during the OS install and I manually connected and updated after logging in the first time.

If you think it might be caused by the Ubuntu repositories, I could try a clean install and skipping the sudo apt upgrade prior to the setup script install.

[mitu]

You could change your current Ubuntu repository mirror and retry (apt update first). You can use apt-cache policy to check the troublesome packages and see what version are available and from which repository.

[YFZdude]

@mitu said in x86 Ubuntu install trouble / dependencies:

You could change your current Ubuntu repository mirror and retry (apt update first). You can use apt-cache policy to check the troublesome packages and see what version are available and from which repository.

I was unable to find held packages, but you got me going in the right direction. For whatever reason, my sources.list file had a comment in it that suggested that because I used a smaller ISO it might not have been the full file. Perhaps a side effect of not allowing online updates during install.

So I got hold of a more 'full' listing of the official sources and ran apt update and it suddenly had way more packages to update and then the install script could find more of what it needed.

Thanks!