libcurl4-openssl-dev:armhf cannot be installed when libcurl4-openssl-dev is already installed - c++

Question

I have created a c++ app on Debian Jessie 8.10 amd64 which also need the following libraries:
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev
sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev
I also need to cross compile the source code for armhf. So according to this quite helpful link https://wiki.embeddedarm.com/wiki/Jessie_armhf_Cross_Compile I gave the following commands:
sudo apt-get install curl build-essential
su root
echo "deb http://emdebian.org/tools/debian jessie main" >
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/emdebian.list
curl http://emdebian.org/tools/debian/emdebian-toolchain-archive.key | apt-key add -
dpkg --add-architecture armhf
apt-get update
apt-get install crossbuild-essential-armhf
Everything got installed correctly and then I also gave :
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev:armhf
sudo apt-get install libcurl4-openssl-dev:armhf
The first command executed successfully. On the other hand the second one failed giving the following output:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
libcurl4-doc:armhf libcurl3-dbg:armhf libidn11-dev:armhf libkrb5-dev:armhf libldap2-dev:armhf
librtmp-dev:armhf libssh2-1-dev:armhf pkg-config:armhf
The following NEW packages will be installed:
libcurl4-openssl-dev:armhf
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
23 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/316 kB of archives.
After this operation, 863 kB of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 94032 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../libcurl4-openssl-dev_7.38.0-4+deb8u8_armhf.deb ...
Unpacking libcurl4-openssl-dev:armhf (7.38.0-4+deb8u8) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/libcurl4-openssl-dev_7.38.0-4+deb8u8_armhf.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite shared '/usr/include/curl/curlbuild.h', which is different from other instances of package libcurl4-openssl-dev:armhf
dpkg-deb: error: subprocess paste was killed by signal (Broken pipe)
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.0.2-5) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/libcurl4-openssl-dev_7.38.0-4+deb8u8_armhf.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
Since I'm quite new in cross compilation procedures does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Answer 1

You are doing nothing wrong. It is a file conflict in related with multiarch packages. It is a bug in the package
Here is a explanation of this kind of bugs, from https://wiki.debian.org/MultiArch/Hints
The package in question is marked Multi-Arch: same, but has
conflicting versions of at least one file for different architectures.
The hint tells the filename (or the number of filenames) and the
architectures (or number of architectures) in question. The easiest
way to fix is to remove the Multi-Arch: same declaration, but often
enough it can be fixed by moving the offending files to
per-architecture locations (typically
/usr/lib/$(DEB_HOST_MULTIARCH)/). For *-dev packages, the Multi-Arch:
same capability often is not critical and removing is a good initial
measure.
I just run into the same kind of problem, which still is an issue with some packages. In my case libcurl-openssl-dev was replacing the /usr/bin/curl-config binary.
To me it required swapping from x64/i386 libraries when i needed cross-compiling but i am well aware it might not be possible for everyone.