Bug#268639: dpkg: Unable to remove package that won't install
Package: dpkg
Version: 1.10.23
Severity: normal
During a dist-upgrade, I got stuck in this situation:
Selecting previously deselected package menu-xdg.
(Reading database ... 109281 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking menu-xdg (from .../menu-xdg_0.1.1_all.deb) ...
dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/menu-xdg_0.1.1_all.deb (--unpack):
trying to overwrite `/etc/xdg/menus/debian-menu.menu', which is also in package kdelibs-bin
Errors were encountered while processing:
/var/cache/apt/archives/menu-xdg_0.1.1_all.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
To resolve this, I chose to deselect menu-xdg. But dpkg won't let me
do that:
kat:/home/mast# dpkg -r menu-xdg
dpkg - warning: ignoring request to remove menu-xdg which isn't installed.
kat:/home/mast# dpkg --purge menu-xdg
dpkg - warning: ignoring request to remove menu-xdg which isn't installed.
kat:/home/mast# dpkg -l menu-xdg
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==========================-==========================-==========================
in menu-xdg 0.1.1 (no description available)
I've also tried to mark the package for removal in dselect, but that
doesn't help. I think dpkg -r should be able to remove packages in
this state too.
-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (990, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.6
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=sv_SE
Versions of packages dpkg depends on:
ii dselect 1.10.23 a user tool to manage Debian packa
ii libc6 2.3.2.ds1-16 GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
-- no debconf information
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