How do i force removal of a package :

[Antony Gelberg]

Patrick wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> 
>>That's not surprising as the error is coming from dpkg itself, not apt.
>>  I don't know why you are trying to force things when the system is
>>telling you there is a problem.  You should be trying to fix the problem.
>>
>>Read the dpkg man page, especially the debugging section.  Try to purge
>>the package with dpkg, with the relevant debug switched on.  Hopefully
>>this will shed some light on "subprocess pre-removal script returned
>>error exit status 10".  Have you looked at the pre-removal script in
>>/var/lib/dpkg/info?
> 
> 
> I'm pretty sure that the error's coming from behind the wrapper as
> you've said ( considering that apt-get/aptitude both do the same ),
> but this doesn't seem to fix my problem, it won't let me re-install
> the package, nor will it tell me how to remove it.

It doesn't fix your problem but it tells you what the problem is.

> 
> However, i've looked at the pre-removal scripts, and i can't honestly
> make heads or tails of it... :(

Try changing #!/bin/sh to #!/bin/sh -x at the top of the .prerm script, 
then as it executes you will (hopefully) see the script being executed, 
and which command fails.  Post the output here.  NB I hope -x will work 
here as I'm not sure if dpkg re-routes the script output to stdout.

> 
> any ideas? And also how would one fix this for a future ubuntu user
> that doesn't know where to look, or what to do ?

If one doesn't know where to look or what to do, he is unlikely to be 
able to fix any problem.

> 
> Patrick
>