How to download Wine (wine1.5-i386 Broken Package Error)?

Question

I have tried:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install wine1.5

and it failed.

The error seems to be:

The following packages have unmet dependencies: wine1.5 : Depends: wine1.5-i386 (= 1.5.19-0ubuntu1) but it is not installable 
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I need wine1.5-i386 but its not on Ubuntu, so I can't install wine because wine1.5-i386 is part of it. When I try to get wine in the Ubuntu Store I get the same error with less details.

Answer 1

When I got that problem (Which appears on either the 32 Bit or 64 Bit) the first thing I need to do is:

1. Get easier tools

   To do some of the jobs I will mention below, first download aptitude and synaptic. This is because both of them deal better with broken packages, specially synaptic. so do a sudo apt-get install aptitude synaptic. You can skip this step but I really recommend this one to avoid some very rare package problems like yours.

2. Eliminate Wine -

   (If this step does not let you eliminate wine, go to Step 3 then back to 2)

   If you open synaptic, look for ALL wine packages and purge them. Do not just delete them. If you delete them, the downloaded package will stay. Purge them which shows as Mark for Complete Removal if you right click the package inside Synaptic.

   If you use aptitude then do a sudo aptitude search wine. For each package that has an i in the beginning column (Which means installed), do a sudo aptitude purge PACKAGE_NAME.
   For example sudo aptitude purge wine1.5. After that do:

   sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean

3. Update & Upgrade -

   After you are sure they are completely removed do an update and afterwards an upgrade:

   sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

4. If steps 2 & 3 do not give any error and you finished them perfectly then (assuming you already added the PPA for Wine as you mentioned in your question, install Wine in one of the following ways:

   With Aptitude: sudo aptitude install wine1.5

   With Synaptic: Open Synaptic and look for the wine1.5 package. It will also install it's dependencies and solve any problems. In there you will see the i386 package also. If this is not selected automatically, select the package manually. Remember to also select winetricks which is needed to install additional packages for wine (.NET, DirectX...)

   With Apt: sudo apt-get install wine1.5

   With Software Center: Just search for Wine. Verify that it is the 1.5 version.

   Of the 4 I recommend first Synaptic, followed by aptitude and apt. Last is Software Center. Not because there is a package problem in general, but because, for this particular case, Software Center for example, gives little put error if something happens, does not show what package dependencies are being installed and one does not know until the end if everything worked or not.

5. Verify that everything is correct by either running winetricks from the Dash or the terminal. Either way, the Wine Configuration Window should appear. This means everything is ok.

Answer 2

You can install playonlinux and it'll automatically select the best version of wine.

sudo apt-get install playonlinux winetricks

Answer 3

It's quite possible the orig. issue here was a matter of date & time, possibly the ppa hadn't built all the packages or some other temporay packing issue.

So may not anything 'to fix'

It is quite simple to install the wine ppa packages, the same command can be used whether wine from ubuntu repos is installed or wine isn't or never has been installed. There is one potential issue if wine was or is currently installed & one wants to only install the ppa version of wine from a console with apt-get. (ie. not use apt-get upgrade

To install just the ppa wine & any deps from a console

1st. remove the metapackage if installed

sudo apt-get purge wine

Then same commands whether wine is or isn't installed

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-wine/ppa

Finish with

sudo apt-get update && \
sudo apt-get install wine

If one has any prior concerns the 1st. simulate, (-s) the install by going

sudo apt-get update && \
sudo apt-get -s install wine

If all is well just re-run without -s, sudo apt-get install wine

Answer 4

Your problem is linked to 32-64 bit architecture, so you need to configure a new foreign architecture (quantal/12.10 only):

sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386

Check your new arch is now available, update and install your package with apt:

sudo dpkg --print-foreign-architectures #now this should return 'i386'
sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get install wine1.5 #and away you go!

Source: Why is Wine not installable on my system?