Can't install Thunderbird

Support
1

I’m struggling to install Thunderbird in Parrot 4.8, updated with parrot-upgrade.

Installing with sudo apt install thunderbird brings the error:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
thunderbird : Depends: libevent-2.1-6 (>= 2.1.8-stable) but it is not installable
       Depends: libffi6 (>= 3.0.4) but it is not installable
       Recommends: lightning (= 1:68.6.0-1~deb10u1) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Installing via snap appeared to work but then it fails when launching with the following error:

snap-confine has elevated permissions and is not confined but should be. Refusing to continue to avoid permission escalation attacks

Any ideas?

2

please try sudo apt install -f. If it can’t be installed, it must be package version problem from Debian testing.

3

I’ve just installed thunderbird. Installation was just fine.

4

After a full parrot-upgrade? If so then I don’t understand why as I’ve not used anything other than the two standard repositories.

5

I upgraded my system few days ago. I used sudo apt full-upgrade but it doesn’t make any difference.

Try other mirror then. Make sure you run sudo apt update before the install

Maybe its apparmor or something like that makes problem. I don’t usually use snap store for installation. To be honest i have to remove it because it took 10gb for only snap core and i only have 128gb SSD.

6

I should have also stated that I’m running Parrot 4.8 on USB with encrypted persistence. Not sure if that makes a difference or not.

I’ve changed to another mirror and reran sudo apt update. I’m still getting the same message. One of the depends is libffi6 and that particular package doesn’t appear to be in the repositories.

──╼ $sudo apt install libffi6
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Package libffi6 is not available, but is referred to by another package.
This may mean that the package is missing, has been obsoleted, or
is only available from another source

E: Package 'libffi6' has no installation candidate

The package does appear to be in both the sid and buster Debian repositories
https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=default&section=all&arch=any&searchon=names&keywords=libffi6

The first time I run sudo apt-get update after changing to a mirror, I get:

Get:1 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling InRelease [14.4 kB]
Get:2 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling-security InRelease [8,764 B]
Get:3 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling/main amd64 Packages [16.6 MB]
Get:4 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling/contrib amd64 Packages [136 kB]
Get:5 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling/non-free amd64 Packages [229 kB]
Get:6 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling-security/main amd64 Packages [319 kB]
Get:7 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling-security/non-free amd64 Packages [619 B]

All times after that, I just get:

└──╼ $sudo apt-get update
Hit:1 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling InRelease
Hit:2 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling-security InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.

sudo apt-cache policy shows:

└──╼ $sudo apt-cache policy
Package files:
 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     release a=now
1001 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling-security/non-free amd64 Packages
     release o=Parrot,a=rolling-security,n=rolling-security,l=Parrot Rolling Repository,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin ftp.nluug.nl
1001 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling-security/main amd64 Packages
     release o=Parrot,a=rolling-security,n=rolling-security,l=Parrot Rolling Repository,c=main,b=amd64
     origin ftp.nluug.nl
1001 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling/non-free amd64 Packages
     release o=Parrot,a=rolling,n=rolling,l=Parrot Rolling Repository,c=non-free,b=amd64
     origin ftp.nluug.nl
1001 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling/contrib amd64 Packages
     release o=Parrot,a=rolling,n=rolling,l=Parrot Rolling Repository,c=contrib,b=amd64
     origin ftp.nluug.nl
1001 https://ftp.nluug.nl/os/Linux/distr/parrot rolling/main amd64 Packages
     release o=Parrot,a=rolling,n=rolling,l=Parrot Rolling Repository,c=main,b=amd64
     origin ftp.nluug.nl

Using sudo apt install -f doesn’t produce different results

The exact version of Thunderbird it’s trying to install is 1:68.6.0-1~deb10u1 which appears to be straight from the Buster repository.

The currently installed versions of libevent and libffi7 appear to be from Sid.

These versions would satisfy the dependencies for the version of Thunderbird in the Sid repository:
https://packages.debian.org/sid/thunderbird but not the version from the Buster repository.

7

I can confirm that downloading the thunderbird package from sid and installing using gdebi works fine - all dependencies met.

8

Well glad you can install it. but i just don’t understand why. My installation was fine.

9

The bigger mystery for me is how you installed it.

The following are the depends for thunderbird, taken straight from the Packages file at https://deb.parrot.sh/parrot/dists/rolling/main/binary-amd64/

Package: thunderbird
Version: 1:68.6.0-1~deb10u1
Installed-Size: 169741
Maintainer: Carsten Schoenert <[email protected]>
Architecture: amd64
Provides: mail-reader
Depends: debianutils (>= 1.16), fontconfig, psmisc, x11-utils, libatk1.0-0 (>= 1.12.4), libc6 (>= 2.28), libcairo-gobject2 (>= 1.10.0), libcairo2 (>= 1.10.2-1.1~), libdbus-1-3 (>= 1.9.14), libdbus-glib-1-2 (>= 0.78), libevent-2.1-6 (>= 2.1.8-stable), libffi6 (>= 3.0.4), libfontconfig1 (>= 2.12.6), libfreetype6 (>= 2.3.5), libgcc1 (>= 1:4.2), libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 (>= 2.22.0), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.30.0), libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.4), libgtk2.0-0 (>= 2.8.0), libjsoncpp1 (>= 1.7.4), libpango-1.0-0 (>= 1.14.0), libstartup-notification0 (>= 0.8), libstdc++6 (>= 7), libvpx5 (>= 1.6.0), libx11-6, libx11-xcb1, libxcb-shm0, libxcb1, libxext6, libxrender1, libxt6, zlib1g (>= 1:1.2.11.dfsg)

Searching the same file for 2 of those dependencies - libevent-2.1-6 and libffi6 - shows that they are missing. The rolling repositories do seem to contain libevent-2.1-7 and libffi7 though - which are dependencies of the thunderbird Sid package but not the thunderbird Buster package which is currently in the rolling repository.

It would be handy if others who have installed the 4.8 release could verify this too

10

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