Messed up libc 2.17 and libc 2.15 dependency error on 12.04LTS

I got myself into a mess in order to solve a libc dependency issue. I downloaded libc6_2.17-0ubuntu5_amd64.deb and libc6-dev_2.17-0ubuntu5_amd64.deb from somewhere and then used dpkg to install it. From then on, the nightmare starts. Anyway, here are the relevant output:

> cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS"
> sudo apt-cache policy libc6 locales
libc6: Installed: 2.17-0ubuntu5 Candidate: 2.17-0ubuntu5 Version table: *** 2.17-0ubuntu5 0 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status 2.15-0ubuntu10.12 0 500 precise-updates/main amd64 Packages 2.15-0ubuntu10.11 0 500 precise-security/main amd64 Packages 2.15-0ubuntu10 0 500 precise/main amd64 Packages
locales: Installed: 2.13+git20120306-3 Candidate: 2.13+git20120306-3 Version table: *** 2.13+git20120306-3 0 500 precise/main amd64 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
> sudo apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... failed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies: libc-dev-bin : Depends: libc6 (< 2.16) but 2.17-0ubuntu5 is installed libc6 : Breaks: libc6:i386 (!= 2.17-0ubuntu5) but 2.15-0ubuntu10.12 is installe d libc6:i386 : Breaks: libc6 (!= 2.15-0ubuntu10.12) but 2.17-0ubuntu5 is installe d libc6-dev : Depends: libc6 (= 2.15-0ubuntu10.11) but 2.17-0ubuntu5 is installed Depends: libc-dev-bin (= 2.15-0ubuntu10.11) libc6-i386 : Depends: libc6 (= 2.15-0ubuntu10.12) but 2.17-0ubuntu5 is installe d libnih1 : PreDepends: libc6 (< 2.16) but 2.17-0ubuntu5 is installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by he ld packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies

2 Answers

Don't bother with trying to install 2.17.

You need to re-install the specific versions of the libraries from 12.04 to fix the issue. Do the following:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall libc6=2.15-0ubuntu10.12 libc6-dev=2.15-0ubuntu10.12
sudo apt-get -f install

This should resolve the issue.

You could solve issue by downgrade libc6

$ apt-get install --reinstall libc6=2.15-0ubuntu10.15 libc6-dev=2.15-0ubuntu10.15
$ apt-get check

If you met the similar error of Bill Z, please try following commands

$ mkdir -p /var/backup/usr/share/doc/libc6/
$ mv /usr/share/doc/libc6/* /var/backup/usr/share/doc/libc6/
$ apt-get install --reinstall libc6=2.15-0ubuntu10.15 libc6-dev=2.15-0ubuntu10.15
$ apt-get check
$ apt-get -f install