libc6 downgraded; system won't boot
I have a HP Omnibook 500 with Debian installed (started out as a potato box,
though had a few packages directly from sid, including KDE 2.2beta, with
corresponding library upgrades. Please, no finger-wagging about the
inappropriateness of mixing stable & unstable packages; I know). The library
upgrades included libc6 2.2.3 from sid.
Despite the mixed packages, the system was very stable. However, I loaned
the laptop to my brother-in-law to take to a conference. While at the
conference, someone offered to install a genetic sequencing program, from
a binary package (the author was unable to provide source). This package
needed libc6 2.1 in order to run. So, the well-meaning friend proceeded to
install libc6 2.1, overwriting the existing libc6 2.2.3 installation. This
rendered most programs on the machine non-operational. For instance, though
they had a terminal window already open, they could not get root access
(i.e., could not run su), so could not undo what they had done. They were
able to download the libc6_2.2.3-11_i386.deb package to the machine, but
couldn't do anything with it once it was there.
The machine was eventually rebooted, and of course could not start at all
without the requisite libc6 libraries. This is the state it was returned to
me in.
So, the questions I have are as follows;
1. Will it be possible to reinstall just the libc6 2.2.3 package? So far, I
have been unable to boot the machine, even with a rescue disk, but assuming
I can do that, would it just be a matter of dpkg -i libc6_2.2.3-11_i386.deb?
2. Assuming I can't access the existing linux partitions at all, a complete
reinstall of Debian would not be a problem (/home is on a separate
partition, so I would not lose any data). I would prefer to go "straight to
woody" if possible. Is it currently possible to install woody via ftp, or
should I install potato and do an apt-get dist-upgrade?
Thanks,
Bruce
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