How to install libicu-dev on Ubuntu

Question

I am trying install gollum by gem on Ubuntu 14.10.

When I try to use gem install gollum, I see the error below:

/usr/bin/ruby2.1 extconf.rb
mkmf.rb can't find header files for ruby at /usr/lib/ruby/include/ruby.h
ERROR:  Error installing gollum:
    ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

    Building has failed. See above output for more information on the failure.
extconf failed, exit code 1

Gem files will remain installed in /var/lib/gems/2.1.0/gems/charlock_holmes-0.7.3 for inspection.
Results logged to /var/lib/gems/2.1.0/extensions/x86_64-linux/2.1.0/charlock_holmes-0.7.3/gem_make.out

I found out that libicu-dev is required.

So I use sudo apt-get install libicu-dev, but receive this error:

$ sudo apt-get install libicu-dev 
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:
 libicu-dev : Depends: libicu52 (= 52.1-6) but 52.1-6ubuntu0.3 is to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

I tried apt-get install -f, but the error remained as before.

How can I fix the problem? Thank you!

Answer 1

You have to re-install this libicu, I solved this problem on ubuntu 22:

1. apt purge libicu-dev libicu
2. apt update
3. apt install libicu-dev libicu

Answer 2

sudo apt install libicu52=52.1-6

sudo apt-get install libicu-dev

Install the required version. There will be a downgrade warning that you will need to confirm that looks like this:

The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
  libicu52
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 downgraded, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 7,643 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
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