Bug Report: Unsatisfied dependency `libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0` on modern Debian/Ubuntu systems

[wilz-chaitan]

Etcher Version: 2.1.4
OS: Ubuntu 24.04 / Debian (testing/unstable) or equivalent modern distro
Package format: .deb (amd64)

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Describe the bug

Installing balena-etcher_2.1.4_amd64.deb fails on modern Ubuntu/Debian systems because the package declares a hard dependency on libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0, which is no longer available in the repositories of newer distributions. The package has been renamed to libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 in Ubuntu 24.04 and equivalent Debian releases.

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Error output

Unsatisfied dependencies:
 balena-etcher : Depends: libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 but it is not installable
Error: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

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Root cause

The .deb package control file specifies libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 as a dependency. On Ubuntu 24.04+, this package no longer exists under that name — it has been superseded by libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0. APT cannot resolve the dependency and refuses to install the package.

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Expected behavior

The package should install successfully on current LTS and stable distributions, including Ubuntu 24.04 (Noble Numbat).

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Suggested fix

Update the dependency declaration in the .deb control file to reference libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 instead of (or in addition to) libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0, so that the package resolves correctly on both older and newer distributions. This can be done using an OR dependency:

Depends: libgdk-pixbuf-2.0-0 | libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0

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Workaround

Still Trying to figure out.

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Thank you for maintaining this project. Happy to provide any additional system info if helpful.

[lurch]

See e.g. #4538