Re: Lost /var/lib/dpkg/status

[Erik van der Meulen <e.van.der.meulen@avondel.nl>]

On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 10:34:39 +0000, Karl E. Jorgensen wrote:

> On Tue, Jan 29, 2002 at 10:34:04AM +0100, Erik van der Meulen wrote:
> > Hi - I have managed to spoil my Potato installation big time, I think.
> > I have the following error with whatever dpkg command I give:
> > 
> > dpkg: failed to open package info file `/var/lib/dpkg/status' for
> > reading: No such file or directory
> 
> Ouch. How did that happen? If it happened as a result of dpkg doing
> something weird, it is *definetely* worth reporting a bug on it (check
> the outstanding bugs first).

Thanks for your help. I have messed up some time ago, while mixing
stable and testing. Had to do with new Perl versions and such. I gave up
at the time but want to fix things now.
I think I have managed to recreate the file by giving:

  touch /var/lib/dpkg/status

The error is gone, but the file contains only entries for things I have
installed after the 'touch'. So now:

  apt-get dist-upgrade

suggests to upgrade libc6 and if I do:

  apt-get install libc6

I get:

The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libc6 
  0 packages upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not
  upgraded.
  1 packages not fully installed or removed.
  Need to get 0B/1901kB of archives. After unpacking 9798kB will be
  used.
  (Reading database ... 117 files and directories currently installed.)
  Unpacking libc6 (from .../libc6_2.1.3-19_i386.deb) ...
  dpkg not recorded as installed, cannot check for epoch support !
  dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.1.3-19_i386.deb
  (--unpack):
   subprocess pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
   Errors were encountered while processing:
    /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.1.3-19_i386.deb
    E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

It seems that dpkg is not installed (not in the status file). So if I
do:

  apt-get install dpkg

I get:

  Sorry, but the following packages have unmet dependencies:
    dpkg: PreDepends: libc6 (>= 2.1.2) but it is not going to be
    installed
            PreDepends: libncurses5 but it is not going to be installed
	      libstdc++2.10: Depends: libc6 (>= 2.1.2) but it is not
	      going to be installed

So it seems to be a circular dependency.
Anyway, I seem to need a way to regenerate the status file from
currently installed packages on my system, or is there some alternative
smart scenario thinkable?

Thanks a lot!

--
  Erik van der Meulen <e.van.der.meulen@avondel.nl>