Just had this same error in a laptop, 7 days after the original poster, and fixed it.
Let me explain in detail, both the analysis and the steps I took. Maybe someone can figure the causes better!
Context and root cause
For context, this is an old laptop I hadn't used it for a few months. I applied all upgrades, and after the reboot I was left in a shell.
Tried startx
but it didn't not work, I was getting a white message about something being broken with gnome.
The obvious fix was to just reinstall ubuntu-gnome-desktop
:
sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-gnome-desktop
It failed, because a conflict in gnome-shell-common
version:
gnome-shell: depends: gnome-shell-common (= 42.5-0ubuntu1) but 42.9-0ubuntu2 is to be installed
This is weird! I tried to install that version, but it did not exist in the repositories:
apt install gnome-shell-common=42.5\*
Fixing the local repos
So I got suspicious of the repositories. I was using the Spanish repositories (ES), so changed those to the standard ones:
- by opening
/etc/apt/sources.list
- and replacing the domain:
# from this:
deb http://es.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy main restricted
# to this:
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ jammy main restricted
After this, I run apt update
and apt upgrade
. And, surprise! it had many, many packages to update.
Success!
With this new available packages, again I reinstalled ubuntu-gnome-desktop
, and this time it worked as expected (no error message on gnome-shell
sudo apt install --reinstall ubuntu-gnome-desktop
It worked as expected, gnome started, It's fixed, I'm happy!
FYI, I have the gnome-shell-common
at the newest version (42.9-0ubuntu2). No idea why it was asking for an old one, I guess because of a deprecated ES repo?
Suspicions
I'm suspicious, but have no proof, that this could be related:
- I've just updated from the snap store app, showed some errors
- I had gnome-tweaks and similar packages
Conclusions
-
- This means that the ES locale repo was broken, right? Is it up-to-date?
-
- The original poster (auroravenue) has the system with the BR locale, maybe that repo was also wrong?