package ia32-libs (not installed) failed to install/upgrade: unable to create `/usr/lib32/nvidia/libGL.so.1.2.xlibmesa.dpkg-new' (while processing `./usr/lib32/libGL.so.1.2'): No such file or directory

I found the solution to this problem, for my system at least. I uninstalled the 173 nvidia drivers and then the ia32-libs and flash-plugin installed fine. I then reinstalled the nvidia 173 drivers. Now everything works fine. In my case the ia32-libs had to be installed before the nvidia proprietary drivers. Hope this helps someone else.

I found this problem trying to isntall the skype package (from skype website) and the flashplugin-installer package from the Ubuntu repository. I am using Ubuntu Karmic on a dual Xeon workstation, Dell box with nVIDIA graphics card.

I removed all the nvidia packages, and then the skype and flashplugin-installer packages loaded, then I reloaded the nvidia packages -- I am using the 185 series. It all now seems to work.

The upshot is that there seems to be a conflict between the ia32-libs package and the nvidia packages.

Thanks for posting the bug report, it helped me a lot :-) though I wish there wasn't the problem in the first place!

Sadly though Epiphany crashes on a very large number of webpages where it didn't previously and Firefox is fine on the same pages. Haven't tried Galeon yet. I don't get this problem on my laptop which is also x86_64 but as it has Intel graphics rather than nVIDIA I guess it is the nVIDIA issue that is the problem.