Essential packages will be removed "lzma (due to dpkg)" when doing dist-upgrade

I have found a workaround. If you do apt-get install dpkg (dpkg is already installed so the effect is to upgrade dpkg) then it does this;

The following extra packages will be installed:
  liblzma5 multiarch-support xz-utils
Suggested packages:
  xz-lzma
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  liblzma5 multiarch-support xz-utils
The following packages will be upgraded:
  dpkg
1 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 264 not upgraded.

Once this completes, you can then do the dist-upgrade without warnings

Thanks for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Could you please add the log files and subdirectories from '/var/log/dist-upgrade/' to this bug report as separate attachments? Thanks in advance.

What method did you use to upgrade from 10.04 to 12.04 ?

I'm guessing from the description that he used 'apt-get', especially if manually chagned from lucid to precise, and not update-manager.

Regarding /var/log/dist-upgrade, that directory is empty.

Regarding method, I used apt-get at cli

If its apt-get you should probably install a new apt from precise first as there are more changes that may not make the upgrade work very well without a new apt.

[Expired for update-manager (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

I have this problem on 3 different machines that I want to upgrade from lucid to precise. I tried the fix of above but it did not work for me:

root@mediapc2:/etc/apt# apt-get install dpkg
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:
  gnome-icon-theme: Breaks: gnome-games (< 1:2.30.2-1) but 1:2.30.0-0ubuntu6 is to be installed
  libasound2: Breaks: libasound2-plugins (< 1.0.24) but 1.0.22-0ubuntu6 is to be installed
  libglib2.0-0: Breaks: gnome-control-center (< 1:3) but 1:2.30.1-0ubuntu2 is to be installed
                Breaks: gvfs (< 1.8) but 1.6.1-0ubuntu1build1 is to be installed
  libgstreamer-plugins-bad0.10-0: Breaks: gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad (< 0.10.22.3-2) but 0.10.18-1ubuntu1 is to be installed
  libpango1.0-0: Breaks: plymouth (< 0.8.2-2ubuntu19) but 0.8.2-2ubuntu2.2 is to be installed
  ppp: Breaks: network-manager (<= 0.8.0.999-1) but 0.8-0ubuntu3.3 is to be installed
       Breaks: network-manager-pptp (<= 0.8.0.999-1) but 0.8-0ubuntu3 is to be installed
E: Broken packages

Is it safe to say "Yes, do as I say" on the dist-upgrade?

Is there any other fix?

Can anyone see how to fix the fix for me?

Any other work around?

If I have this on 3 fully upgraded lucid machines it would seem lots of people should have seen this problem or that it should have been fixed in the last year. But I have searched for awhile and I am not finding a work around that works for me.

Please help!

My machines are amd64, in case that makes a difference.

This is strange, it seems that while
   apt-get dist-upgrade

gives me a warning that it is about to destroy my machine, when I do
   apt-get upgrade

It starts working like everything is fine. Hope it works...

That just installed some things and stopped. When I try dist-upgrade after it is still get the same:

WARNING: The following essential packages will be removed.
This should NOT be done unless you know exactly what you are doing!
  lzma (due to dpkg)

I have the same issue. Vincecate, did you ever figure out a workaround?

Thanks,
David