google-cloud-sdk 463.0.0 debian package install/upgrade broken

Question

The google-cloud-sdk[-<package_name>] debian packages version 463.0.0 are broken on apt-get install and update with errors similar to:

root@e3a51df7def8:/# apt-get install google-cloud-sdk
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
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:
 google-cloud-cli : Breaks: google-cloud-sdk but 463.0.0-0 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

Answer 1

The solution is to instead install the google-cloud-cli versions of these packages. For example:

apt-get install google-cloud-cli

You may need to run apt-get remove google-cloud-sdk[-<package_name>] beforehand.

Answer 2

As @NathanLooney mentioned, the error is caused by a rebranding done by Google. The google-cloud-sdk package was actually a CLI as explained in this podcast.

Unfortunately, the release notes were just released but make no mention of this deprecation yet.

The documentation of Google seems to refer to the package as cli now but there are still some old references to the sdk package which I think will be cleaned over time.

An alternative solution is to pin to the last working version:

apt-get install google-cloud-sdk=462.0.0-0

The new packages seem to work out of the box anyway so it should be safe to replace them.