Fails to met dependencies when running sudo apt-get install python-software-properties while following guide to install Certbot

The output that I having when running the command sudo apt-get install python-software-properties is:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... 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.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
python-software-properties : Depends: python-gnupginterface but it is not installable
Depends: python-pycurl but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I went through all some guides for troubleshooting my Ubuntu 16.10 source.list file but nothing did work.
Also, bellow is the output of the command sudo apt-get update

Hit:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu precise-updates InRelease
Ign:2 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu yakkety-security InRelease                                                                                          
Ign:3 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu yakkety-security Release                           .
.
.
.
.
.
.
Ign:97 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety-backports/multiverse Translation-en_US
Ign:97 http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety-backports/multiverse Translation-en_US
Ign:98 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety-backports/multiverse Translation-en
Ign:98 http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety-backports/multiverse Translation-en
Err:39 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety/multiverse Sources
  404  Not Found
Ign:39 http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety/multiverse Sources
Err:59 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety-updates/restricted Sources
  404  Not Found
Ign:59 http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety-updates/restricted Sources
Err:79 http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety-backports/restricted Sources
  404  Not Found
Ign:79 http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety-backports/restricted Sources
Reading package lists... Done
W: The repository 'http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu yakkety-security Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Data from such a repository can't be authenticated and is therefore potentially dangerous to use.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
W: http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/precise-updates/InRelease: Signature by key 630239CC130E1A7FD81A27B140976EAF437D05B5 uses weak digest algorithm (SHA1)
W: The repository 'http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Data from such a repository can't be authenticated and is therefore potentially dangerous to use.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
W: The repository 'http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety-updates Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Data from such a repository can't be authenticated and is therefore potentially dangerous to use.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
W: The repository 'http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu yakkety-backports Release' does not have a Release file.
N: Data from such a repository can't be authenticated and is therefore potentially dangerous to use.
N: See apt-secure(8) manpage for repository creation and user configuration details.
E: Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-security/restricted/source/Sources  404  Not Found [IP: 91.189.91.23 80]
E: Failed to fetch http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/multiverse/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/restricted/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/universe/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/main/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/main/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/main/binary-all/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/main/i18n/Translation-en_US  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/main/i18n/Translation-en  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/restricted/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/restricted/binary-all/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety/restricted/i18n/Translation-en_US  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/restricted/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/universe/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/multiverse/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/main/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/main/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/main/binary-all/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/main/i18n/Translation-en  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/main/i18n/Translation-en_US  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/restricted/binary-all/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/restricted/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-updates/restricted/i18n/Translation-en  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/restricted/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/universe/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/multiverse/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/main/source/Sources  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/main/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/main/binary-all/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/main/i18n/Translation-en  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/main/i18n/Translation-en_US  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/restricted/binary-amd64/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/restricted/binary-all/Packages  404  Not Found
E: Failed to fetch http://nyc2.mirrors.digitalocean.com/ubuntu/dists/yakkety-backports/restricted/i18n/Translation-en  404  Not Found
E: Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Hi @oscarouedraogo,

Ubuntu 16.10 hasn't been supported since July of last year. I guess that no software updates are available for it.

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

For security reasons, it would be preferable to update to a newer Ubuntu release. I believe you can do that by running do-release-upgrade.

If you don't want to do that, you may be able to use certbot-auto to install Certbot outside of your apt package manager. However, you could encounter other problems related to running an OS version that's unsupported by the distributor.

1 Like

You can change sources.list to use http://old-releases.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/. So you can install things while upgrading to a supported distro.

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