[Bug 1920753] [NEW] Cannot install build-essential on fresh Ubuntu 20.04.2 installation

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After a fresh install of Ubuntu 20.04.2 (followed by upgrade to the very
latest packages) I installed gcc and then wanted to install build-
essential, but it fails with the following error message:

$ sudo apt install build-essential
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.
 build-essential : Depends: libc6-dev but it is not going to be installed or
                            libc-dev
                   Depends: g++ (>= 4:9.2) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

This means that nothing can be compiled, obviously.

Also, g++ cannot be installed either:

$ sudo apt install g++
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.
 g++ : Depends: g++-9 (>= 9.3.0-3~) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
$ gcc --version
gcc (Ubuntu 9.3.0-17ubuntu1~20.04) 9.3.0
Copyright (C) 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

** Affects: build-essential (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: Incomplete

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Cannot install build-essential on fresh Ubuntu 20.04.2 installation
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1920753
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