Re: I broke apt and dpkg - need help

[Robert <robertsohn@sympatico.ca>]

On Friday 25 October 01:06, nate wrote:
> Robert said:
> > Help.  I just did a major patition reshuffle and I've wiped out
> > /var/lib/apt  and also /var/cache/apt -- and now dpkg and apt are
> > broken,  Can't reinstall them either.  Any suggestions or humorous
> > comments welcome  :(
>
> does not sound serious to me. the critical stuff is in /var/lib/dpkg.
>
> you should just be able to re-create the directory structure:
>
> drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root         4096 Oct 23 18:21
> /var/cache/apt drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root         8192 Oct 23
> 18:21 /var/cache/apt/archives drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root        
> 4096 Jun 25 10:52 /var/lib/apt drwxr-xr-x    3 root     root        
> 4096 Aug 24 16:44 /var/lib/apt/lists drwxr-xr-x    2 root     root   
>      4096 Oct 14 13:12
> /var/lib/apt/lists/partial/
>
> and try running apt-get update see what happens
>
> nate

Thanks for your reply.

Sorry, should have been more explicit.  /var/lib/dpkg is gone too.   It 
was late at night and I forgot that I had made /var a symlink to a 
partition I was cleaning out.  So, there is nothing left of apt or dpkg 
in /var, and only thought of it halfway throught he carnage.   

So now I guess apt knows nothing about the installed packages on my 
system.  None of the apt commands will run without an error about 
missing files in /var/*.

Reinstall the only solution?  Or is another copy of this info kept 
elsewhere on the system?   Unfortunately, I  did not back up /var as 
part of a backup strategy.  (good lesson I guess).

all the best,
Robert_L