How do I get rid of these broken package errors and install Mate in Linux Mint 16 Petra?

Question

I have upgraded my computer to Linux Mint 16 Petra. Everything worked smoothly during the install with no errors, or indications of any problems.

However, after I rebooted, Mate was no longer an option among all the sessions. I have Cinnamon and Gnome, but no Mate.

I logged in using Cinnamon and tried to install Mate using Synaptic, but it keeps giving me errors about broken packages.

How do I install Mate in Linux Mint 16 Petra?

Here is some output that I hope will be helpful in determining the problem:

homebase ~ # sudo apt-get install mate-desktop-environment
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
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 resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 mate-desktop-environment : Depends: mate-core (= 1.6.0.1+raring) but it is not going to be installed
                            Depends: mate-screensaver (>= 1.6.0) but it is not going to be installed
                            Depends: mate-applets (>= 1.6.0) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
homebase ~ # apt-get install mate-core
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
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 resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 mate-core : Depends: libmatekbd (>= 1.6.0)
             Depends: libmatewnck (>= 1.6.0)
             Depends: libmatedesktop (>= 1.6.0)
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
homebase ~ # apt-get install libmatekbd
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
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 resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 mate-settings-daemon : Depends: mate-settings-daemon-gstreamer (>= 1.6.1-1~mate1+petra) but it is not going to be installed or
                                 mate-settings-daemon-pulse (>= 1.6.1-1~mate1+petra) but it is not going to be installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

Solution

The solution that worked for me:

1. Use Synaptic to remove any and all MATE related packages. Anything with MATE in the name.

2. Change the repositories to the defaults using the software sources interface. For some reason, Synaptic would not open that interface, so I used the Update Manager instead.

3. Update the package information.

4. Install mint-meta-mate.

5. Logout, and log back in using MATE.

All is good now.

Comments

[Gilles 'SO- stop being evil']

The first thing to try is sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get -f install

[ADAM]

@Gilles: Thanks for responding. I tried those commands, but they didn't change anything.

[roaima]

You write that it's « bad practice to use aptitude and apt-get interchangeably, as they record separately the changes made by a user ». Are you sure about this? I've never encountered issues, and I can't find anything online that agrees with your warning. The closest I can find is that aptitude manages the automatic removal of dependencies, whereas apt-get requires an explicit action to do so.