You have been subscribed to a public bug: i386 packages on an x64 installation are not recognized as already installed.
This is reproducible with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS x64 Desktop, with any i386 .deb. Like the Google Earch 32 bit package from: earth.google.com /download-earth.html To reproduce it, first enable multiarch with: $ sudo dpkg --add-architecture i386 $ sudo apt-get update Then double click on the downloaded google-earth-stable_current_i386.deb file, and press "Install" in Ubuntu Software Center. The package is installed. Now exit from Ubuntu Software Center, and click again on the .deb. The same "Install" choice is provided, instead of the expected "Reinstall" that instead appears on a 32 bit Ubuntu 14.04 system. Note that the fact that goggle-earth doesn't start for missing dependencies is not interesting in this case. This is the result of dpkg-query: $ sudo dpkg-query -l google-earth-stable Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name Version Architecture Description +++-==============-============-============-================================= iW google-earth-s 7.1.2.2041-r i386 Explore, search and discover the $ sudo dpkg-query -s google-earth-stable Package: google-earth-stable Status: install ok installed Priority: optional Section: net Installed-Size: 182617 Maintainer: Google Earth Team <[email protected]> Architecture: i386 Version: 7.1.2.2041-r0 Depends: lsb-core (>= 3.2) Pre-Depends: dpkg (>= 1.14.0) ** Affects: software-center (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New -- Doesn't show "Reinstall" in multiarch https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1391166 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
