I had no network on my PC and installed many (hundreds) .deb packages with the command

sudo dpkg -i *.deb

The installed applications are all working (wine, vlc etc) When opening Synaptic, I have 207 broken packages... AFAIK packages are broken if they have unresolved dependencies. But if rightclick one of those broken packages none of the dependencies is italic...

So, if everything works why are so many packages "broken"?

EDIT It seems not all installed application are working. Some of them need libraries that aren't installed.

Also, I think all those packages messed up my system: Important settings have been resetten (display resolution, keyboard and mousepad) .

I guess uninstalling all those packages is the simpliest way to resolve all those problems. Correct me if I'm wrong


That's purely “by accident”. Missing dependencies only start to cause problems once you try to

  • use their functionality or

  • install, upgrade, or remove packages via Apt and its front-ends (like Synaptic).

  • Exactly that's the problem. I need to install other packages, but Synaptic/apt wants to remove broken packages first...How can I fix this without redownloading all packages? – westernCiv Nov 3 '16 at 18:45
  • Please [open a new question] and clarify what exactly you want do do/install and what happens when you try to do that. Include all encountered warning and error messages verbatim. A good start would the complete output of sudo apt-get install -f. – David Foerster Nov 4 '16 at 2:12

Your Answer

