[ubuntu-uk] Stuff appearing in Terminal, I dont know what it is......

[J Fernyhough]

On 6 March 2011 14:50, Grant Sewell <dcglug at thymox.co.uk> wrote:
>
> Unfortunately /var/lib/dpkg/status is quite an important file and (as
> far as I am aware) there is no real way to re-generate it.  Essentially
> it holds details of each package that's installed, and those that have
> been installed and removed (but not purged), etc, etc.
>

Having run Ubuntu+1 for a few years, manually clearing out
/var/lib/dpkg has saved my install on a number of occasions. After
doing a 'sudo rm -fR /var/lib/dpkg' package managers will complain
about missing files and directories; it's a simple matter to mkdir and
touch them back into place. After I update my sources (e.g. aptitude
update) both aptitude and synaptic find the packages I already have
installed and I'm up and running again.

> Rule #1: Unless *you* are 100% certain on what you are doing, never
> *delete* a file on your system that someone else tells you to delete.
> Renaming the file is almost always good enough, and at least if you
> rename it you have a chance of renaming it back again.

Agreed.

Jonathon