libboost-all-dev package in ubuntu14.04.01 repo broken

What is the output of the following terminal commands:

uname -a
lsb_release -a
apt-cache policy libboost-all-dev
dpkg -L libboost-all-dev

(will answer in 3h - got to get home)

uname -a:

Linux MYCOMPUTER 3.13.0-40-generic #68-Ubuntu SMP Tue Nov 4 01:48:13 UTC 2014 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
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lsb_release -a:

No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS
Release: 14.04
Codename: trusty
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apt-cache policy libboost-all-dev:

libboost-all-dev:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 1.54.0.1ubuntu1
  Version table:
     1.54.0.1ubuntu1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/universe amd64 Packages
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
dpkg -L libboost-all-dev:

dpkg-query: package 'libboost-all-dev' is not installed
Use dpkg --info (= dpkg-deb --info) to examine archive files,
and dpkg --contents (= dpkg-deb --contents) to list their contents.

libboost-all-dev is not installed on your system!

Installing it with the terminal command "sudo apt-get install libboost-all-dev" should make the development libraries available (check with "ls -l /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost*").

Maybe there was some kind of misunderstanding of the packages:
libboost-all-dev itself does not contain anything (except copyright and changelog files), but has a dependency on several libboost-*-dev packages which in turn have dependencies on the current libboost-*versionnumber-dev packages which finally contain the real files.

E.g.: libboost-all-dev depends on (among others) libboost-atomic-dev which depends on libboost-atomic1.54-dev which delivers /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_atomic.a and /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_atomic.so

The question now is whether you want to have the boost packages from boost defaults source (1.54) or from boost1.55 installed.

libboost-all-dev is not installed from repo in my system - truely - for I deleted it, because it placed no real libraries in /usr/lib/x86_x64... and no headers in /usr/include

Now I have installed libboost-all-dev from ubuntu packages site and it does the job.

My whole question was how it is available.

Do I understand it correct: you state that the packages in ubutu14 repo are ok and their dependencies are ok?

That case, the mystery for me remains.

I cannot state whether the packages are ok or not. My intention was to verify that with the help of your system, but due to the fact that you have applied a different solution, this is not possible any more.

I'm afraid, I don't comprehend you.

As far as i understand, it IS a bug with package, for "sudo apt-get install libboost-all-dev" should have installed libboost*.so files at least somewhere on my sistem.

However, I've found a workaround for myself and applied it, purging the brocken package before it.

So I spread this bug info and want to get developers/maintainers acknowledgment of the matter.

If I can do something more - uninstall boost completely, and then install the brocken package from repo to get sum debug info - tell me.

Thank you.

I see two possible causes for the effect "I installed libboost-all-dev but do not find the libboost*.so files on my system":
1. There is something wrong with the package or
2. There is / was something wrong with the installation of that package on your system.

Due to the fact that you meanwhile have installed another libbost-dev package, there is no possibility any more to verify whether there is/was something wrong on your system - unless you volunteer to remove all libboost packages from your system and re-try installing the libboost-all-dev package.

I see now. This "bug" gives me an itch. So I`ll do reinstall and contact you in 3h.

1) I will uninstall all boost packages though synaptics package manager (neither apt-get, nor dokg see them anyway, yes?).
2) then I`ll sudo apt-get install libboost-all-dev
3) then I'll post output of these here

>lsb_release -a
>apt-cache policy libboost-all-dev
>dpkg -L libboost-all-dev

4) and then I'll once again try to find libraries and includes with

>find / -name "*boost*"

Is my plan okey, @m-hampl?

The plan is reasonable.

Some further comments:

synaptic package manager, apt-get and dpkg look at the same data. So if a package is shown as installed in synaptic, you should also see it with apt and dpkg.

dpkg -L libboost-all-dev will most probably show just a copyright file and a change log.

When trying to install libboost-all-dev you should see that the package management also installs dozens of other packages because of dependency.

ls -l /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost*
should list all the *.so and *.a files.

Before you try re-installing you can verify with
dpkg -l | grep boost
whether you have still some boost packages installed.

Instead of using the find command to locate the boost files, you can also use the commands
sudo updatedb
locate boost

sdd@SPARROWHAWK:~$ sudo apt-get install libboost-all-dev
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:
 libboost-all-dev : Depends: libboost-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-tools-dev
                    Depends: libboost-atomic-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-chrono-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-context-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-coroutine-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-date-time-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-exception-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-filesystem-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-graph-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-graph-parallel-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-iostreams-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-locale-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-log-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-math-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-mpi-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-mpi-python-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-program-options-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-python-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-random-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-regex-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-serialization-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-signals-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-system-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-test-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-thread-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-timer-dev but it is not going to be installed
                    Depends: libboost-wave-dev but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

That was before I removed everything from Synaptics. In this state, Synaptics and dpkg shared all knowledge and apt-get was unknowledgeable of packages - for I didn't use it to install the workaround

I reinstalled libboost-all-dev from repo.

Before that I've done

sudo apt-get autoremove

And this time it's all ok.

It seems that I had some boost-related trash installed and not autoremoved.

Sorry. Thank you for your time. I will read apt-get output with much more attention in case something goes wrong any other time.

Be good!