New proposed script- Fix broken antiX install

[Member PPC]

Recently I had a problem: for some reason I updated the default LibreOffice to the latest version, using Package Installer and today, when I needed LibreOffice Writer, nothing was available: I clicked the quick launch icon on my toolbar and I could almost hear the crickets in the desert, like in an old western movie… Hum…
Lets try the menu – What the…? No LibreOffice entries!!!

I was ready for battle, so I draw the big gun: the terminal
The apt said that the packages were installed, but still nothing came up in the menu and the CLI told me libreoffice was not installed when I tried to run it, but apt told me the packages where there, but the terminal just told me… Ok, just breathe calmly…

I tried to reinstall LibreOffice, only to have a held packages error, or something similar. I tried to purge libreoffice via apt, and it told me i could not do it, showing me an error… It was just like hearing HAL: “I’m sorry, Dave, but I can’t do that”

Thank god my LibreOffice .appimage was available on my hard drive. I did what I had to do with it and went back to my second round, fighting antiX.

I used synaptic- and was able to uninstall libreoffice from there (heck, isn’t synaptic just an interface for apt? Why couldn’t apt do the same?).
I tried to reinstall LO, from Package Installer- no can do. I tried to install using apt: bonus round “broken packages”.
Apt was out to ruin my day… I tried to fix broken packages- nope. I tried the same with synaptic: double no.

If I had my pen here, I would just reinstall. But nope. So, I went head first into apt, while it kept beating me to a pulp. When all else fails, duck, duck and go…

The solution? Some dude named Clem posted something that my search engine coffed up, in an effort to end my misery:

sudo apt --fix-broken install
sudo apt-get -f install

I tried to reinstall LibreOffice after that- it did install, but when I ran “libreoffice” the cli did nothing. after a reboot “libreoffice” magically works once again.

So, before reinstalling try purging the offending packages and running those 2 lines of code!

I’m so happy this worked that I proposed these 2 code to be promoted to an official antix script (like the “auto remove” one)
It would be basically:

gksu "apt --fix-broken install" 
gksu "apt-get -f install"
yad --center --title="Frack apt" --text="Abracadabra, your system should be back to life" --button="Hurra!" 

This text is supposed to be humorous, but there’s some value on the idea of creating a script to automate this task, when users are in need to fix their systems and synaptic refuses to fix broken packages.

P.

[Member sybok]

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It could be appreciated by some people, especially the newbies.
I’ve seen ‘apt –fix-broken’ (or its alternatives) in the forum mentioned several times.
A new item in ‘antiX control centre -> Software’?

Please, do make text could slightly more detailed, e.g. “Abracadabra (‘fix-broken’ switch invoked), your …”.

[Member Xunzi_23]

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Having had a similar experience I had to grin. At the time I was puzzled.

LO Org suggests in the wiki.

sudo apt-get purge libreoffice? libobasis?

sudo aptitude purge libreoffice? libobasis?

I had to do an autoremove and remove a config in home too.

Then at last my fresh install attempt worked.

After some reading,
Seems the regular expression ? is safer than using * which with
short package names can have unexpected sometimes desastrous results.

Need to learn more, some of my apt habits/knowledge (lack of) can certainly be improved.

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