Nasty mess installing sendmail

[Harry Putnam]

Nicolas Kovacs <info at microlinux.fr> writes:

> Same thing happened here with the slapd package: dpkg refused to
> remove it, but also to reinstall. I tried about every option:
>
> # dpkg --jump-through-burning-loops -remove slapd
>
> wouldn't work.
>
> I ended up reinstalling the whole damn server and regretted having
> migrated it from Slackware in the first place.
>
> (No flame intended here, Ubuntu is great, and Slackware has its quirks
> also :o))

People have suggested the --purge command in apt-get (or aptitude).
Did you try that... Or didn't know about it then?