Package/dependency problems when attempting to install Armory on Tails v. 2.10.

[monsterintheparasol]

Hey guys,

First post!

This is all a bit like a foreign language to me; I mainly got into anonymous internet protocols, bitcoin, etc., due to genuine concern in the increasing power and influence of nation state surveillance and the governmental encroachment into citizens' internet privacy. I'm finding that to maximise anonymity and privacy, one can get increasingly lost down the technical rabbit hole.

I am basically trying to set up an offline Armory wallet running on Tails. I am using the most up to date Tails v. 2.10 and have downloaded Armory 0.93.3 for Ubuntu 12.04+ (32bit). I understand that there is no standalone Debian bundle specifically for Tails and that the Ubuntu one remains broadly serviceable - though not without some setup headache. Additionally, I've downloaded a series of individual Ubuntu/Debian packages that apparently are required for Armory to install correctly on Tails. These are listed on a webpage (http://bitzuma.com/posts/offline-installation-of-armory-on-tails-and-ubuntu-linux/) that deals precisely with my issue, although it is now quite outdated (Tails v. 1.. Effectively, I've now compiled what should constitute a recipe for an Armory offline package/install bundle for Tails. I then copy all these packages into a USB folder named "armory", copy that to the Tails Desktop, and run the Terminal application/Cmd equivalent. I type:

$ cd Desktop/armory
$ sudo dpkg -i *.deb

The unpacking/install process then begins; however, I get one dependency error regarding a "python-qt4" package. My knowledge of anything Debian/Linux related is superficial at best, and I can't work out from the Debian source site how to find this package (if that is actually what it is) and incorporate it into the larger "armory" folder. I can find references to it, but there appear to be multiple builds/updates, sub-dependencies, and different architectures. I don't even know if my issue is actually purely just that one missing package, if it will snowball further requiring other dependencies, or if I'm even barking up the right tree. Even after copying the apparent extra package that subsequent posters listed on the same webpage as mentioned above, Armory will not install.

There are a couple of threads on here that talk about similar issues, but they are at least 3 years old and no real consensus was agreed upon. I also found this video which is pretty damn close to what I'm trying to do, but even it is outdated and not of much help to me in the face of dependency errors. https://player.vimeo.com/video.

Has anyone had the same or similar issues, and do they know how to solve or workaround Tails/Ubuntu and Armory package dependency issues?

Cheers.

[1715262947]

1715262947

[1715262947]

1715262947

[achow101]

have downloaded Armory 0.93.3 for Ubuntu 12.04+ (32bit).

This is your first problem. 0.93.3 is out dated, and because Armory and Bitcoin Core (a very important dependency) are both very hardware intensive software, you should not be using a 32bit install. In fact, Armory no longer provides 32bit packages. You should use the latest Armory from https://btcarmory.com/0.95.1-release/

The unpacking/install process then begins; however, I seem to get one dependency error regarding a "python-qt4" package.

You should be able to run

Code:

sudo apt-get install python-qt4

That should install the package and Armory should be able to use it. There shouldn't be anything else that you need to do.

[monsterintheparasol]

Cheers for the heads-up. I completely missed that Armory update!

So, I replaced Armory 0.93.3 with newly downloaded 0.95.1, maintained all the original packages, and repeated the install process. No dice. The output is below: *I hope I've enabled the insertion of code output correctly so that it appears concise as you have done in your post above. If not, perhaps someone could tell me how to do it properly?

Code:

Preparing to unpack python-twisted-words_12.0.0-1_all (1).deb ...

Unpacking python-twisted-words (12.0.0-1) over (12.0.0-1)...

dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of armory:
 
armory depends on python (>= 2.6).
 
armory depends on python-qt4.
 
armory depends on python-twisted.
 
armory depends on python-psutil.
 
armory depends on libc6 (>= 2.3.2).
 
armory depends on libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1).
 
armory depends on libstdc++6 (>= 4.7).

dpkg: 
error processing package armory (--install):
 
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured

Setting up python-crypto (2.6-4+deb7u3) ...

I followed your command regarding getting the "python-qt4" package, but was informed that the appropriate version was already present within the directory. I'm pretty unfamiliar with scripts, but am I right in assuming that I am missing all of the above packages and that the ">" denotes that I need the version of the associated package equal to or greater than the numerical value that follows it?

I also tried the following processes to no avail:

Code:

sudo apt-get -f install
[sudo] password for amnesia: 

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libqt4-declarative libqt4-opengl libqt4-script libqt4-sql libqt4-svg
  libqt4-xmlpatterns libqtassistantclient4 libqtwebkit4 python-cffi
  python-cryptography python-ply python-pycparser
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

amnesia@amnesia:~/Desktop/armory[b]$ sudo apt-get autoremove[/b]

[sudo] password for amnesia: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  libqt4-declarative libqt4-opengl libqt4-script libqt4-sql libqt4-svg
  libqt4-xmlpatterns libqtassistantclient4 libqtwebkit4 python-cffi
  python-cryptography python-ply python-pycparser
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 12 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 44.1 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y 

(Reading database ... 149713 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing libqt4-declarative:i386 (4:4.8.6+git64-g5dc8b2b+dfsg-3+deb8u1) ...
Removing libqt4-opengl:i386 (4:4.8.6+git64-g5dc8b2b+dfsg-3+deb8u1) ...
Removing libqt4-script:i386 (4:4.8.6+git64-g5dc8b2b+dfsg-3+deb8u1) ...
Removing libqt4-sql:i386 (4:4.8.6+git64-g5dc8b2b+dfsg-3+deb8u1) ...
Removing libqt4-svg:i386 (4:4.8.6+git64-g5dc8b2b+dfsg-3+deb8u1) ...
Removing libqt4-xmlpatterns:i386 (4:4.8.6+git64-g5dc8b2b+dfsg-3+deb8u1) ...
Removing libqtassistantclient4 (4.6.3-3ubuntu2) ...
Removing libqtwebkit4:i386 (2.2.1-1ubuntu4) ...
Removing python-cryptography (0.6.1-1) ...
Removing python-cffi (0.8.6-1) ...
Removing python-pycparser (2.10+dfsg-3) ...
Removing python-ply (3.4-5) ...
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.19-18+deb8u7) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.0.2-5) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of armory:
 armory depends on python (>= 2.6).
 armory depends on python-qt4.
 armory depends on python-twisted.
 armory depends on python-psutil.
 armory depends on libc6 (>= 2.3.2).
 armory depends on libgcc1 (>= 1:4.1.1).
 armory depends on libstdc++6 (>= 4.7).

dpkg: error processing package armory (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 armory
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

I gather this is what is called "dependency hell", whereby one could spend hours diving into the tree to find that one dependency depends on another which depends on another and so on? Obviously, I'm struggling to get my head around what needs to be done, lol.

*Edit: Two things just occurred to me. Could it be that the additional packages listed on the somewhat outdated webpage I included in the original post are redundant and possibly causing the installation errors, especially given that the writer was referring to an older 32 bit version of Armory for Ubuntu? If this is the case, how would one go about sourcing an accurate up to date package bundle valid for Armory 0.95.1 and Tails v. 2.10?

Secondly, when typically faced with missing dependent packages, is it fundamental practice to just download them directly from the Terminal/Cmd as you are installing? I mean, intuitively, achow101's earlier listed command

Code:

sudo apt-get install python-qt4

suggests that you could just type that command for each respective dependency that the terminal lists as missing during installation. However, I might imagine that if any package was originally wrongly allocated to the install directory, all subsequent downloaded dependencies would be redundant - it sounds like a potential tedious nightmare. Anyway, I don't know if that would work or if such a process would rely on additional steps to define the correct version of each package required, I'm just thinking aloud.