Gnome Shell: 'Depends: libgjs0 but it is not going to be installed'

JeevesBond's picture

He has: 3,956 posts

Joined: Jun 2002

I've been trying to install Gnome Shell (just for fun), but trying to install it using Synaptic under Ubuntu 10.04 causes an error:

Depends: libgjs0 but it is not going to be installed

So, to get to the root of the issue I try to install libgjs0, which generates the issue:

libgjs0:
  Depends: xulrunner-1.9.1 (<=1.9.1.9~) but 1.9.1.9~hg20100308r26824+nobinonly-0ubuntu1~umd1 is to be installed

So the problem is xulrunner, which is provided by the Ubuntu Mozilla Daily PPA and provides cutting-edge versions of Firefox and Thunderbird. Synaptic looks at the version of xulrunner available and determines it's not compatible with libgjs0.

There are four options to fix this: 1. force the installation of libgjs0, this will probably cause problems when upgrading though, so it's not advisable; 2. pin the version of xulrunner at a lower version; 3. compile Gnome Shell from source (some handy instructions); 4. remove the Mozilla PPA and put Firefox and Thunderbird back to their default versions.

I opted to install Gnome Shell from source and it's not too difficult. Thought I'd post this up here since some others on the Web seem to be having the same problems.

Feel free to post up your own solutions.

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pr0gr4mm3r's picture

He has: 1,502 posts

Joined: Sep 2006

Generally, when I install something out of the ordinary or newer than what's in the repositories, I install a manually downloaded deb package or install from source, because adding repositories like the Ubuntu Mozilla Daily PPA is just asking for conflicts with other software packages, as I found out when I wanted to install Thunderbird 3.x.

I watched some videos on Gnome Shell, and it looks pretty cool, although I haven't tried it yet.

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