E: Cannot get debconf version. Is debconf installed?

Question

I was run Debian on QEMU with ARMv8 arch.

root@debian:/home/kennedy# apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libgcc1
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libgcc1
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/31.3 kB of archives.
After this operation, 114 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
E: Cannot get debconf version. Is debconf installed?
debconf: apt-extracttemplates failed: No such file or directory
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libc6:arm64:
 libc6:arm64 depends on libgcc1; however:
  Package libgcc1 is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package libc6:arm64 (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of multiarch-support:
 multiarch-support depends on libc6 (>= 2.3.6-2); however:
  Package libc6:arm64 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing package multiarch-support (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 libc6:arm64
 multiarch-support
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

and I tried apt-get update its OK.

root@debian:/home/kennedy# apt-get update
Hit http://ftp.cn.debian.org jessie InRelease
Hit http://ftp.cn.debian.org jessie-updates InRelease 
Hit http://ftp.cn.debian.org jessie/main Sources                               
Hit http://ftp.cn.debian.org jessie/main arm64 Packages                        
Hit http://ftp.cn.debian.org jessie/main Translation-en                        
Hit http://ftp.cn.debian.org jessie-updates/main Sources                       
Get:1 http://ftp.cn.debian.org jessie-updates/main arm64 Packages/DiffIndex [505 B]
Get:2 http://ftp.cn.debian.org jessie-updates/main Translation-en/DiffIndex [229 B]
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates InRelease                        
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Sources
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main arm64 Packages
Hit http://security.debian.org jessie/updates/main Translation-en
Fetched 734 B in 9s (80 B/s)                                                   
Reading package lists... Done

and /var/backups is empty.

root@debian:/home/kennedy# uname -a
Linux debian 3.16.0-4-arm64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.7-ckt11-1 (2015-05-24) aarch64 GNU/Linux

---

When I run apt-get install debconf,it show me:

root@debian:/home/kennedy# apt-get install debconf
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 debconf : PreDepends: perl-base (>= 5.6.1-4) but it is not going to be installed
           Recommends: apt-utils (>= 0.5.1) but it is not going to be installed
           Recommends: debconf-i18n but it is not going to be installed
 libc6 : Depends: libgcc1 but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

Answer 1

@kennedy I had the same problem;

What does this mean ?

Means you / Ubuntu have messed up with the debian configuration; it's more like a place / database which has all information of what packages / system tools or software in general are installed in the system

What needs to be done ?

Just follow the below steps and you should be fine

Step 1: Check if the dependent PPA are checked as mentioned in below link https://askubuntu.com/questions/140246/how-do-i-resolve-unmet-dependencies-after-adding-a-ppa

Step 2: Fix your broken package system with the link below: https://askubuntu.com/questions/322084/package-system-is-broken

Step 3: Try running these commands as root

apt-get update

apt-get clean

apt-get install -fy

dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb

dpkg --configure -a

apt-get install -fy

If nothing works, you might have to perform a back-up and re-install Ubuntu

OR

Hack it as mentioned in the below link

Step 4: Fix the issues which occur while installing packages https://askubuntu.com/questions/220649/problem-installing-packages/485293#485293

Step 5: Clean, Update and Dist upgrade apt-get update

apt-get clean

apt-get install -fy

dpkg -i /var/cache/apt/archives/*.deb

dpkg --configure -a

apt-get install -fy

apt-get dist-upgrade

If terminal prompts with questions like Y / N etc... always opt for the default option highlighted in caps; most probably it would be N. Until and unless you are really sure of what you are doing

apt-get dist-upgrade will upgrade your OS to the next release version

Answer 2

@kennedy Updating the old post, just go on with the following commands if you are a complete newbie and just want to get it done

dpkg-reconfigure debconf  

Best bet would be, choose Non-interactive and then choose critical on the next screen

Once that is done,

for pkg in $(dpkg-query --show | awk '{print $1}'); do echo ; echo "--> $pkg" ; echo ; dpkg-reconfigure --frontend=noninteractive --priority=critical $pkg < /dev/null ; done