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

[Denis Brown]

At 23:57 27/04/2004 +0800, Cameron Patrick wrote:
>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

<snippity-snip>

Many thanks, Cameron.   I will follow through with that later today or, 
more likely, later this evening.   I see that I was focusing on the 
complaint ("No dir file...") rather than the complainer, install-info 
:-)   A reinstall of the original version might well assist matters but 
I'll be working backwards from the error messages - the tips you gave re 
install-info - in an effort to learn as much as possible en route.

Cheers,
Denis