I'm sure this is a duplicate candidate, but I have looked at the answer for 64bit 12.10, but it doesn't seem to work for my 13.10 installation.
I have enabled 32bit architecture, ie.
sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386
sudo apt-get update
I have added the canonical repository (and confirmed in "Software Sources" that it seems to be there).
sudo add-apt-repository "deb http://archive.canonical.com/ $(lsb_release -sc) partner"
I have tried cleaning the dependency tree up:
sudo apt-get clear
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get -u dist-upgrade
And as far as I understand from the instructions linked above, no problems are reported. If I then try to install Skype:
nsa@quadrupod:~$ sudo apt-get install skype
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies.
skype : Depends: skype-bin
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
Not overly surprising, so I try installing skype-bin, as indeed is suggested and found to work in some answers:
nsa@quadrupod:~$ sudo apt-get install skype-bin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:
The following packages have unmet dependencies.
skype-bin:i386 : Depends: libasound2:i386 (>= 1.0.23)
Depends: libc6:i386 (>= 2.7) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libgcc1:i386 (>= 1:4.1.1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libqt4-dbus:i386 (>= 4:4.5.3) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libqt4-network:i386 (>= 4:4.8.0) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libqt4-xml:i386 (>= 4:4.5.3) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libqtcore4:i386 (>= 4:4.7.0~beta1) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libqtgui4:i386 (>= 4:4.8.0) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libqtwebkit4:i386 (>= 2.2~2011week36) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libstdc++6:i386 (>= 4.6) but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libx11-6:i386 but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libxext6:i386 but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libxss1:i386 but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libxv1:i386 but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libssl1.0.0:i386 but it is not going to be installed
Depends: libgl1-mesa-glx:i386 but it is not going to be installed
Recommends: sni-qt:i386 but it is not going to be installed
Recommends: libasound2-plugins:i386 but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
OK, so I try to look up what these held/broken packages might be, according to this link and this link from here:
apt-mark showhold
returns nothing.
dpkg --get-selections | grep hold
and
dpkg -l | grep ^h
also returns nothing. So what is held?
I tried the suggestion here of using synaptic. It claims to fix broken packages, however to install Skype it wants to uninstall most of the system, including gnome-control-center, gnome-system-monitor, gnome-user-guide, the file lens, the clock (indicator-datetime), apt-utils, lib32gc1, (which is one of the dependencies apt-get thinks Skype needs amongst others on a long list. I don't see any obvious replacements on the much shorter list of what it thinks needs installing.
I also tried
sudo aptitude install skype.
with a similar result, it gives a list of stuff to uninstall that is so long it exceeds the normal terminal buffer and I had to pipe it to a file to read it. As above it includes things that do not sound wise to remove, including
73) gnome-bluetooth
74) gnome-calculator
75) gnome-contacts
76) gnome-control-center
77) gnome-control-center-datetime
78) gnome-control-center-signon
79) gnome-control-center-unity
80) gnome-disk-utility
81) gnome-font-viewer
82) gnome-icon-theme
83) gnome-icon-theme-symbolic
84) gnome-keyring
85) gnome-mahjongg
86) gnome-mines
87) gnome-orca
88) gnome-power-manager
89) gnome-screensaver
90) gnome-screenshot
91) gnome-session
92) gnome-session-bin
93) gnome-session-canberra
94) gnome-settings-daemon
95) gnome-sudoku
96) gnome-system-log
97) gnome-system-monitor
98) gnome-terminal
99) gnome-user-guide
100 gnome-user-share
and also wants to uninstall over 400 other packages. I would have thought I needed these..? Now it isn´t a long time since I installed ubuntu, but before I start over, has anybody got any ideas? Does it somehow think it should replace all 64bit stuff?