Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages

Question

I have tried (what a fool!) to install a newer version of glibc on Debian Stretch using dpkg and armhf .pkg files. After a candid

sudo dpkg -i libc6_2.28-10_armhf.deb
sudo dpkg -i libssl1.1_1.1.1d-0+deb10u7_armhf.deb

I got a failed installation because of dependencies not met, and this must have lead to an inconsistent state of my system.

The two problems I have right now:

1. In python, if I import ssl I get:
   • ImportError: /lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libc.so.6: version `GLIBC_2.25' not found (required by /usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/libcrypto.so.1.1)
2. Also apt-get install is not working any more. For example sudo apt-get install gawk complains

You might want to run 'apt --fix-broken install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libssl-dev : Depends: libssl1.1 (= 1.1.0l-1~deb9u4) but 1.1.1d-0+deb10u7 is to be installed
 libssl1.1 : Depends: libc6 (>= 2.28) but 2.24-11+deb9u4 is to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt --fix-broken install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

I have tried sudo apt --fix-broken install but no luck, still stuck in unmet dependencies and breaks.

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 libssl-dev : Depends: libssl1.1 (= 1.1.0l-1~deb9u4) but 1.1.1d-0+deb10u7 is installed
 libssl1.1 : Depends: libc6 (>= 2.28) but 2.24-11+deb9u4 is installed
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.
E: Unable to correct dependencies

This mention of held packages made me try sudo dpkg --remove --pending but this did not give any output nor did change anything of the above tangle of vetoes.

Answer 1

To fix this, you can downgrade:

sudo apt install libc6/stretch libssl1.1/stretch

Alternatively you could figure out what the missing dependencies are, but you might as well upgrade to Debian 10 entirely if you want to go down that route.