I have run into errors like this and share your frustration. I mitigate them as follows: 0) I think problems like this are often fixable if you are an APT wiza

I have run into errors like this and share your frustration. I mitigate them as follows: 0) I think problems like this are often fixable if you are an APT wizard, which I am not. But sometimes a look at the Debian docs makes an inscrutable error scrutable. I also usually get more helpful (and current) advice on the debian-users list than search engines turn up. [1] 1) I run Debian stable. I think errors like this are fairly common on unstable and mixed systems; I don't know how common they are on Ubuntu. But I believe I have never run into a problem like this on the stable release. 2) If trying to compile everything from source, the deb tools can help a lot, too (apt-get source, apt-get build-dep). It's only if you get to the point of downloading a source tarball from a third party that you have to completely leave the cozy world of APT. (And even then, I find I have better luck than on other platforms, because I can still use APT to install dependencies. No such luck on, say, OS X, at least not without a third party package tool.) [1] See http://lists.debian.org/search.html http://lists.debian.org/search.html to search the list archives.