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View Full Version : [ubuntu] [SOLVED] dpkg Package Manager rendered useless



gmjs
November 1st, 2008, 12:56 AM
Hello,

I wanted to install an application that requires the Qt4 libraries, so I went to install them using aptitude as follows:


$ sudo aptitude install libqt4-dev

dpkg downloaded the relevant packages and attempted to install them, but the installation failed at the comerr-dev package. apport then started and suggested I filled in a bug report for the error.

As the installation was incomplete and therefore useless, I decided to remove the install. Maybe I could try it again afterwards. I used the following command:


$ sudo aptitude purge libqt4-dev

All components were removed, except for comerr-dev.

Now every time I try and install software using the package manager (e.g Inkscape as below), it fails as it tries to remove the faulty package first and can't:


graham@asus:~$ sudo aptitude install inkscape
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initialising package states... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
imagemagick{a} inkscape libblas3gf{a} libgfortran3{a} liblapack3gf{a}
libmagick++10{a} libwmf-bin{a} perlmagick{a} python-lxml{a}
python-numpy{a} python-uniconvertor{a}
The following packages will be REMOVED:
comerr-dev{u}
0 packages upgraded, 11 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/22.5MB of archives. After unpacking 87.1MB will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] Y
Writing extended state information... Done
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 100944 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing comerr-dev ...
install-info: No dir file specified; try --help for more information.
dpkg: error processing comerr-dev (--remove):
subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
comerr-dev
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
A package failed to install. Trying to recover:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initialising package states... Done
Writing extended state information... Done


Is there any way I can remove comerr-dev so that I can use the package manager again?

Also, does anyone have an ideas as to why the comerr-dev package fails to install on my machine? It's a clean install of Ubuntu 8.10 32-bit from the alternate CD with the build-essentials package and all updates at 30/10/2008.

Many thanks,

Graham

gmjs
November 2nd, 2008, 02:03 AM
OK, I removed the section from /var/lib/dpkg/status that indicates that comerr-dev is installed and I can now use aptitude again.

Now it's just a case of waiting for an 'unbroken' version of comerr-dev!