Software Updater wants to install uninstallable Boxes.

[thomassisson]

I keep getting a notice of software updates. I go to check the updates and it wants to install a program called Boxes. It says, "Some packages were not marked for update." If I select mark all, it doesn't select Boxes. I mark Boxes, but the install updates remains disabled. I want to say WTF, but that's not helpful. I also want to say the further I go along with the Ubuntu distributions, the more trouble I have.

Other than trying another distribution or reinstalling from scratch, does anyone have any helpful suggestions.

[vinnywright]

do this in a terminal

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

you will see what it wants to install/upgrade ,,,, when you click select all (in muon)you are switching from a just update to a upgrade situation ,,,,,so if say boxes was just going to be updated it would be checked ,,,,,if then it changes to a upgrade you may not see (in muon)the selection of the new ver. in the background .

VINNY

[thomassisson]

Re: Software Updater wants to install uninstallable Boxes.

I'm using Kubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail; it's a beta. Muon has changed and Mark All does not mean upgrades.

For further explanation the full message I had was the following:

Some packages were not marked for update.
The update of these packages need some others to be installed or removed.
Do you want to update those too?

This seems to replace the usual pop-up in previous versions of Muon. It is like the messages in web browsers that replace pop-ups that appear below the toolbars and is not part of the page either.

As a side note:

I don't understand why one has to go through such machinations. If the additional packages are required, they simply should be marked. The only time the user should need to be asked for input is when marking updates removes other packages, breaks dependencies, or creates an impossible situation that would generate a terminal message when using APT when packages cannot be installed.

After running sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade only libosinfo-bin was installed. I believe that was a remnant from my upgrade to Kubuntu 12.04 today.

I also received the following message that I have never seen before even when perusing the various Linux forums on the web:

The following packages have been kept back:
  gnome-boxes

Yes I have Gnome packages as well as Gnome Desktop installed. I like Gnome, but I don't like it's limitations or lack of customizations. No, I don't have Ubuntu installed or the Ubuntu desktop. I simply don't like the Ubuntu Desktop annoying.

Apparently it was held back because it is an experimental upstream release. Since I did not know how to tell Muon to ignore it while allowing further updates (such as freezing the version), I ran apt-get install gnome-boxes on the offending update. When it was done it spit out a Changlog in the terminal using LESS.

Get:1 Changelog for gnome-boxes (http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/universe/g/gnome-boxes/gnome-boxes_3.6.3
-0ubuntu1/changelog) [3,660 B]
gnome-boxes (3.6.3-0ubuntu1) raring; urgency=low

  * New upstream release
  * debian/control.in:
    - Depend on libosinfo-bin so that physical CDs can be used
      for installing a new virtual machine (LP: #1089735)
  * debian/control.in, debian/rules:
    - qemu on Ubuntu 13.04 includes spice support so drop the
      special handling

 -- Jeremy Bicha <jbicha@ubuntu.com>  Wed, 27 Feb 2013 09:54:38 -0500

gnome-boxes (3.6.2-1) experimental; urgency=low

  [ Jeremy Bicha ]
  * New upstream release (3.6.1.1).
    - Non-free logos are now downloaded on demand (Closes: #663560)
  * debian/control.in:
    - Update dependencies
  * debian/README.source:
    - Dropped
  * debian/watch: Stop mangling upstream version

  [ Andreas Henriksson ]
  * New upstream release (3.6.2).
    - Bump libosinfo build dependency to >= 0.2.1.
  * Change valac (>= 0.17.2) to valac-0.18 (>= 0.17.2),
    since valac hasn't yet been bumped for vala 0.18.
'
 -- Andreas Henriksson <andreas@fatal.se>  Tue, 11 Dec 2012 23:52:29 +0100

After quitting LESS, it continued to install gnome-boxes and dependencies. You may also see that my local mail appears to be messed up also. I'll finish my comments here and the remaining output is below. I won't mark this as solved as I believe this is a workaround for what I believe is a bug. I'd file the bug, but I don't think t hat it is worth the trouble. They would probably dismiss it as a user error and I don't have traditional bug output. I think it follows more along the line of bad programming because it does exactly what it is supposed to--I just don't think what it does makes sense.

apt-listchanges: Mailing root: apt-listchanges: changelogs for tom-Satellite-L755D
sendmail: Cannot open mail:25
(Reading database ... 568106 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace gnome-boxes 3.6.1.1-0ubuntu1 (using .../gnome-boxes_3.6.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement gnome-boxes ...
Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:i386 ...
Processing triggers for libglib2.0-0:amd64 ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf-2.index...
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus ...
(Reading database ... 568096 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing libspice-client-gtk-3.0-1:amd64 ...
Removing libspice-client-glib-2.0-1:amd64 ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
Selecting previously unselected package libspice-client-glib-2.0-8:amd64.
(Reading database ... 568091 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking libspice-client-glib-2.0-8:amd64 (from .../libspice-client-glib-2.0-8_0.18-0nocelt1exp_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package libspice-client-gtk-3.0-4:amd64.
Unpacking libspice-client-gtk-3.0-4:amd64 (from .../libspice-client-gtk-3.0-4_0.18-0nocelt1exp_amd64.deb) ...
Setting up libspice-client-glib-2.0-8:amd64 (0.18-0nocelt1exp) ...
Setting up libspice-client-gtk-3.0-4:amd64 (0.18-0nocelt1exp) ...
Setting up gnome-boxes (3.6.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place

[SteveRiley]

gnome-boxes is a graphical front-end to libvirt, which provides management of and interfaces to a variety of virtual machine types -- usually KVM, but not exclusively.

It's difficult to see why you would have that installed unless you specifically chose it, because no package in Raring has a dependency on gnome-boxes.

[thomassisson]

I have VirtualBox installed. I just found the whole ordeal odd.

Thanks

[SteveRiley]

There is no relationship between GNOME Boxes and VirtualBox. The presence of VirtualBox on your system would not trigger the installation of GNOME Boxes.