(Solved) Can't use dpkg (and thus apt-get et al.)

["David R. Litwin" <presently42@gmail.com>]

The file /var/dpkg/available became corrupted. debconf, dpkg, apt-get and synaptic could not work. The fix:
 

My suggestion, rather than messing around with editing and such, would be to do:

dpkg --clear-avail

: to clear the available list, then do:

apt-get update

: to repopulate it.

Ta.

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