Synaptic is stuck - removing partially installed package?

[Michael T. Richter]

On Wed, 2007-24-01 at 19:00 +0700, Chanchao wrote:

> And that's it...  I'm stuck. Also Automatic Updates don't work anymore. 


I had this problem with llvm under Edgy.  Partially uninstalled and then
cakked.  In this case it was under removing a file type association
where the program in question puked because it didn't know that type.

My "solution"?

First I moved the program out of the way and replaced it with a
do-nothing script that just returned a happy, shiny error code of 0.

Then I used apt-get --purge remove package name to get rid of
dependencies.  (The package in question was still borked after this, but
all packages depending on it got removed.)

After that I used dpkg with the "force everything" option (can't
remember what it is off the top of my head and I'm too lazy to open the
CLI to find it, sorry. ;)) to get rid of the package once and for all.

Finally I restored the file type association program back to where it
was supposed to be and ran synaptic, telling it to fix any broken
packages.

It was all in all a pain in the ass.

Oh.  And I forgot the most important step.  I call it "step 0":  I
backed up my system first.  :D

-- 
Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter at gmail.com, mtr1966 at hotpop.com
MSN: ttmrichter at hotmail.com, mtr1966 at hotmail.com; YIM:
michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber:
mtr1966 at jabber.cn

"[Blacks] ... are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body
and mind." --Thomas Jefferson
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