Q:

Problem with updating due to obsolete package versions.

I recently installed Ubuntu 12.04. When I started the update manager I received this message:  
The problem cannot be reported:

You have some obsolete package versions installed. Please upgrade the following packages  
and check if the problem still occurs:

jockey-common, busybox-initramfs, coreutils, dbus, initscripts, libapt-inst1.4,  
libapt-pkg4.12, libc-bin, libc6, libdbus-1-3, libexpat1, libgcrypt11, libglib2.0-0,  
libgnutls26, libgssapi-krb5-2, libk5crypto3, libkrb5-3, libkrb5support0, libldap-2.4-2,   
libpolkit-agent-1-0, libpolkit-backend-1-0, libpolkit-gobject-1-0, libsasl2-2, libsqlite3-0,  
libssl1.0.0, libtasn1-3, libudev0, libxcb1, lsb-base, mountall, multiarch-support, openssl,   
passwd, perl-base, policykit-1, python2.7, python2.7-minimal, sysv-rc, sysvinit-utils, tzdata,   
udev, upstart

Does anyone know how to fix this problem?  Thank you.
David

A:

Open a terminal and type:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get autoremove

Since autoclean removes packages that are no longer available from configured software sources, you may want to move the sudo apt-get autoclean step until right after the sudo apt-get update step. 

Clean: clean clears out the local repository of retrieved package
files. It removes everything but the lock file from
/var/cache/apt/archives/ and /var/cache/apt/archives/partial/. When
APT is used as a dselect method, clean is run automatically. Those
who do not use dselect will likely want to run apt-get clean from
time to time to free up disk space.
Autoclean: Like clean, autoclean clears out the local repository of
retrieved package files. The difference is that it only removes
package files that can no longer be downloaded, and are largely
useless. This allows a cache to be maintained over a long period
without it growing out of control. The configuration option
APT::Clean-Installed will prevent installed packages from being
erased if it is set to off.
Autoremove: is used to remove packages that were automatically
installed to satisfy dependencies for some package and that are no
longer needed.

See manpage

