[plug] fouled-up apt: cannot even force-remove-reinstreq a package :-(

[Cameron Patrick]

Denis Brown wrote:

| dpkg -l autoconf now tells me to remove and reinstall it having a
| status of "rFR" meaning desired state = "remove" present status =
| "Failed-config" and Error condition = "Reinst-required" The upper
| case flags indicate serious discontent :-)

To start with, when dpkg says that a reinstallation is required, have
you tried reinstalling the original woody packages?  While downgrades
aren't officially supported by Debian ;-) it'll probably work for
simple packages and one would hope that the woody version would have
non-broken install scripts.  If, on the other hand, the woody version
doesn't work, that would be a sign that something more serious is
afoot.

| install-info: No dir file specified; try --help for more information.
[...]
| What the heck is "No dir file specified" meant to mean????

That error is coming from install-info, probably indicating a typo in
the script that's calling it.  From the install-info man page,
"install-info makes, updates or removes entries in the Info directory,
the dir file."  Try editing the postinst and prerm scripts
(/var/lib/dpkg/info/$PACKAGE.{postinst,prerm}) and adding exit 0 at
the top, or otherwise removing the offending line.  (Obviously if the
postinst looks like it's doing important stuff then you should make
sure that it gets done!  But this should add least get dpkg in a state
where it's happy with the package.)

One other thing that might be worth investigating is where
install-info comes from and whether it's been tampered with or
upgraded surreptitiously or something such that it breaks other
packages' postinsts.

Cameron.