How to fix apt/dpkg/dselect

[Guyren G Howe <guyren@geocities.com>]

I have been trying for three or four days to get my x server to run. I can't
get dselect or apt to do the intelligent thing when it comes to
re-installing anything.

If I fix something (by brute-force: download via ftp and install), something
else breaks. apt and dselect are hopelessly trapped in loops or something
about what depends on what, what I should have installed and so on.

For instance: at the moment, I am trying to install man-db, since I don't
have any man pages (don't ask). I do:

apt-get install man-db

I get:

...
You might want to run apt-get install -f...
Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies:

man-db: Depends: groff
rstart: Depends: netstd but it is not going to be installed
rstartd: Depends: netstd but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try apt-get -f install with no packages (or specify a
solution)

I thought apt was supposed to *sort out* dependencies. So I do:

apt-get install -f

and I get:

blah blah blah
The following... will be installed:
netstd
... 0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
10 packages not fully installed or removed.
...Do you want to continue?

I say Yes. I get:

Unpacking netstd...
dpkg: error processing... netstd_3.07-7slink...
trying to overwrite '/usr/bin/finger', which is also in package finger
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (broken pipe)
Errors were encountered while processing:
...netstd_3.07-7slink...
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

So then, not seeing what else I can do, I do:

apt-get install finger

and I get:

...
rstart: Depends: netstd but it is not going to be installed
rstartd:...

and then it advises me to run apt-get -f install.

So I'm stuck in a loop. Is there some master package I can ask for that will
reinstall Debian 2.2? What else can I do? This sucks!

TIA

Guyren G Howe