Ubuntu Won't update/upgrade or install anything

[mamut0o1]

Hello; I recently did an upgrade to my box and since then I lost my sound and what's worse I can not do an update or upgrade without getting the following
message: E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (100)

can any1 please help me before I light this thing up.
thanks

Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda2 18761980 3780028 14028896 22% /
varrun 127992 168 127824 1% /var/run
varlock 127992 0 127992 0% /var/lock
udev 127992 60 127932 1% /dev
devshm 127992 0 127992 0% /dev/shm
lrm 127992 34696 93296 28% /lib/modules/2.6.22-14-generic/volatile

I'm not running out of space.

[Partyboi2]

We need more of the error message. Can you open a terminal and post the output to

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade

[mamut0o1]

We need more of the error message. Can you open a terminal and post the output to

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get upgrade
Hello Thank you for taking the time to read my post; This is the output when I try sudo apt-get upgrade:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
procmail sensible-mda
The following packages have been kept back:
linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic linux-restricted-modules-generic
ssl-cert
The following packages will be upgraded:
bind9-host dnsutils firefox firefox-gnome-support libbind9-30 libdns32
libisc32 libisccc30 libisccfg30 liblwres30 libpurple0 libsmbclient pidgin
pidgin-data samba samba-common smbclient swat
18 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 4 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B/27.0MB of archives.
After unpacking 631kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
Preconfiguring packages ...
Could not exec dpkg!
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (100)
root@mamut-desktop:/home/mamut#

please let me know what you think.
thanks!

[Partyboi2]

Is dpkg still installed? Maybe it is corrupt or missing.

dpkg -l |grep dpkg

[mamut0o1]

This is what I got:
The program 'dpkg' is currently not installed. To run 'dpkg' please ask your administrator to install the package 'dpkg'
bash: dpkg: command not found

then I did apt-get install dpkg and this is what I get;
oot@mamut-desktop:/home/mamut# apt-get install dpkg
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
dpkg is already the newest version.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
procmail sensible-mda
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 22 not upgraded.
2 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 647kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (100)
root@mamut-desktop:/home/mamut#

I cant get any further.

[Partyboi2]

try

sudo apt-get -f install then try installing the package, but I think you need dpkg installed to install debs so you may need to compile (http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/softinstall.html) the package from source (http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=dpkg&searchon=names&suite=all&section=all)or if you have the dpkg-deb package installed you could try following Post #10 from here
(http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=103087)

[mamut0o1]

Hello; Thanks for your help; I tried forcing it and that didn't work so I'm going to compile the package from source, could you point me at the right direction on which source should I download?

thanks again for all your help.

[Partyboi2]

If you are using hardy use this (http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/d/dpkg/dpkg_1.14.16.6ubuntu3.tar.gz) one

[mamut0o1]

Hello Thanks for your help; I spent so much time on this problem I decided to re-install ubuntu. That took care of it =)

thanks

[TimSylvester]

Looks like it's too late for you, but I had this same problem. While running a "dist-upgrade" I got a dpkg error ("Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (100)") and no installations or upgrades would work after that.

Eventually, I discovered this:


/tmp/dpkg$ ls -l /usr/bin/dpkg*
---------- 1 root root 391920 2010-03-10 17:32 /usr/bin/dpkg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 7105 2009-09-20 01:23 /usr/bin/dpkg-architecture
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 16261 2009-09-20 01:23 /usr/bin/dpkg-buildpackage
...In other words, my /usr/bin/dpkg had been cleared of all access rights for everyone by some part of the upgrade process. After running:


sudo chmod 755 /usr/bin/dpkgI was able to "sudo apt-get upgrade dpkg" successfully.