Qt5-default unable to download

Question

Kind of a dumb predicament, but I am having issues installing qt5 it seems. My machine is running kubuntu 18.10. I have been running:

$ sudo apt-get install qt5-default

But I get

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 qt5-default : Depends: qtbase5-dev but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Why is such an important package not able to be installed? Is it because I am running the newest version of Ubuntu?

Thanks!

Solution

The Qt packages on your repository seem to be in a strange state, and in addition they are surely not the latest version of Qt.

It is much better to download the latest Qt release installation from the Qt website from the Install Qt page. I suggest to first uninstall any Qt packages that you have installed from the repository.

The page Qt for Linux/X11 lists for Ubuntu the requirement of:

sudo apt-get install build-essential libgl1-mesa-dev

If you wish to install Qt from sources (as last resort) see Install Qt 5 on Ubuntu, but ensure that it links to the latest version.

The above pages contain all the information you need for installing Qt. Avoid installing Qt packages from your repository. If you will need in the future to ask for help from the Qt team, you had better be on the latest version.

Comments

[harrymc]

If you are trying to install Qt use sudo apt-get install qtbase5-dev. The package qt5-default does not install Qt, just a chooser for already installed versions.

[dabforamerica]

@harrymc It says that it is "not available, but is referred to by another package" Any hints?

[dabforamerica]

Okay I used the installer, and it seemed like it finished correctly, but I want to double check. How can I verify the download worked?

[harrymc]

Start the Qt Creator - it uses Qt interface libraries. If your problem is now solved, please accept this answer (the V button).