Hi! I''ve been running debian for about a year now.. but since about two weeks, im having trouble updating with apt-get. If i try dist-upgrade apt-get wants to replace xlibmesa4-gl with xlibmesa-gl, but for some weird reason the update fails. the output is as follows:

Building Dependency Tree... Done
Calculating Upgrade... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  xlibmesa4-gl
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  xlibmesa-gl
The following packages will be upgraded:
  nvidia-glx-dev xlibmesa-gl-dev
2 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/1005kB of archives.
After unpacking 502kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
(Reading database ... 91190 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace xlibmesa-gl-dev 4.3.0-0ds4 (using .../xlibmesa-gl-dev_4.3.0-7_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement xlibmesa-gl-dev ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/xlibmesa-gl-dev_4.3.0-7_i386.deb (--unpack):
 unable to create `./usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.a'': No such file or directory
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/xlibmesa-gl-dev_4.3.0-7_i386.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
 

I do not understand why it fails to create /usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.a The path is valid and the file doesn''t exist, so i don''t see any reason for it to fail. The same thing happens when i try to install the package "manually" with dpkg. Does anyone know how to solve problems like this? Thanks in advance.

Are you sure you have access to ./usr/X11R6/lib? Are you sure ./usr/X11R6/lib is the place where it''s supposed to be installed--that ''.'' in front of it doesn''t look right. I''m not very familiar with apt-get, but those are just some things I would check. Hope you get it working.

either this or debian cranked up. i''ve a similar problem on my server with debian where it can''t replace the mail server anymore because it somehow brakes while trying to do so. i donno what you can do but i pray for you it''s only that the directory is missing or you didn''t do it as ''su'' otherwise...

Every now and then I get this on a Debian machine I update frequently. It''s most likely because of a previously failed install , and apt-get won''t let you do anything else until the conflict is resolved. Often its over something absolutely tiny like a 20kb html file, but its there. Ie, one package will be wanting to remove a file as part of its upgrade that another package has called ownership on. The trick is to go to your repository, and using dpkg (the backend for apt, read the man page thoroughly about how to use the override flags), and then forcefully install the packages that are conflicting. If it is a minor file that''s reponsible, then that''s all ok. Sometimes it will be because of a nonexistant file, but again they''re usually minor and can usually be forged. If it seems to be important, you may have to use a bit of thought.

So the short of it is, use dpkg -i to manually override and force the installation/fixing/whatever of the packages'' apt-get''s not wanting to.

Sounds like you''ve got a strange conflict between mesa and the nvidia GL stuff...