[NCLUG] can't install KDE on my Debian machine due to libasound1 - help!

[Ed]

Howdy all!

I have a laptop running the debian distribution.

I was trying to switch to kde but dselect came up with an
error. Here's what happens when I try to install the kdebase-libs
package:


mikado:/etc/ppp# apt-get install kdebase-libs
Reading Package Lists... 0%
Reading Package Lists... 100%
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... 0%
Building Dependency Tree... 0%
Building Dependency Tree... 50%
Building Dependency Tree... 50%
Building Dependency Tree... 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.

Since you only requested a single operation it is extremely likely that
the package is simply not installable and a bug report against
that package should be filed.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies:
  kdebase-libs: Depends: libasound1 (>= 0.5.5) but it is not installable
E: Sorry, broken packages
mikado:/etc/ppp# 

WHen I try to get libasound1, I have no luck:

mikado:/etc/ppp# apt-get install libasound1
Reading Package Lists... 0%
Reading Package Lists... 100%
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... 0%
Building Dependency Tree... 0%
Building Dependency Tree... 50%
Building Dependency Tree... 50%
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Package libasound1 has no available version, but exists in the database.
This typically means that the package was mentioned in a dependency and 
never uploaded, has been obsoleted or is not available with the contents 
of sources.list
E: Package libasound1 has no installation candidate

Now what do I do?

Thanks!

Ed Hartnett

-- 
Telesto Engineering - www.telesto-eng.com - Embedded programming consultants.