Stuck package, cant remove

[Derek Broughton]

Dave S wrote:

> I have a corrupted stuck vmware-player package, I cant install it, remove
> it or purge it. any ideas on how to get rid of it ?

Been there, done that.  Recently.

1) Reboot, then purge - the problem is that the scripts can't release the
vmware networking modules.  "rmmod vmnet" didn't work, because it's still
in use.  Rebooting was easiest.

> invoke-rc.d: initscript vmware-player, action "stop" failed.
> dpkg: error processing vmware-player (--purge):
>  subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 1

Alternatively, removing /var/lib/dpkg/info/vmware-player.prerm (or something
like that) first, should let the purge work - but you still won't be able
to _reinstall_ it if you want to, until you reboot (or figure out exactly
what you need to do to rmmod vmnet).

> cp: cannot stat `/usr/lib/vmware-player/share/locations.dist': No such
> file or directory

Haven't seen that one.
-- 
derek