Unmet dependencies for Webmin on Debian or Ubuntu system error

Webmin is great GUI tool to have on your Linux server for quick view on what is  going on with the system eventually from anywhere. I personally like the tool as well and I have tried to install it on our [easyazon-link asin=”B00005R099″ locale=”us”] Debian Gnu/Linux [/easyazon-link]. The installation of .deb package was failing all the time with same message on dependencies.

Option two, I have downloaded tar.gz and run install script. I was able to install Webmin however could not anymore update the system.

Quick install of Webmin on the [easyazon-link asin=”B006X2QEQS” locale=”us”] Debian [/easyazon-link]server from tar.gz archive:

cd /
mkdir TEMP
cd TEMP
wget http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/webadmin/webmin-1.630.tar.gz
wget http://www.webmin.com/jcameron-key.asc
apt-key add jcameron-key.asc

#### unpack the tar and run installation ####
tar -xzvf webmin-1.630.tar.gz
cd webmin
./setup.sh

Answer few questions and shortly you are provided with the link and port you will use to connect to your server. You may now run update on your system and update all packages however sometimes you can receive this error on dependencies that are caused by the installation of Webmin.

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 webmin : Depends: libnet-ssleay-perl but it is not going to be installed
          Depends: libauthen-pam-perl but it is not going to be installed
          Depends: libio-pty-perl but it is not going to be installed
          Depends: apt-show-versions but it is not going to be installed
          Depends: python but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

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If you get this error you wont be able to install or update any package as all it comes to meet dependencies. You can try to resolve this problem in two ways.

###   you can try to force install the dependencies  -- did not work for me ###
sudo apt-get -f install %dependency%
### What worked and will fix it ###
aptitude install perl-base

You are asked few question [ see the screenshots] the process takes around 60 seconds. It will resolve all those missing dependencies and install them properly. From this point on you will be able to run apt-get update and refresh and update system.

[easyazon-image align=”none” asin=”111821854X” locale=”us” height=”160″ src=”http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FaTk60v9L._SL160_.jpg” width=”127″]

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