Re: dist upgrade nightmare!
On Wed, Dec 15, 2010 at 10:32:42AM -0500, Jude DaShiell wrote:
> I tried taking a friend's machine from lenny to squeeze and it turned
> into a disaster. As a consequence of the attempt his entire package
> update and repair systems are broken. apt-get -f install can't fix
> anything and dpkg --configure -a can't fix anything anymore and as a
> consequence of those two acts, it's impossible to update his system. I
> can't even downgrade back to lenny! What I would like to know is if
> emergency procedures exist that can clear the mess out that these
> operations created and get the system back to some known state. I
> wouldn't mind this so much if the upgrade had simply failed but a system
> breaking like this where even though useable with the squeeze kernel on
> it is there nothing can be installed or uninstalled with apt-get and
> aptitude apparently got turned into a zombi placed in not fully installed
> or uninstalled or deferred status. If I had done this to my own computer
> that would be one thing, but this is a computer of a friend and I don't
> appreciate these tools for having ended up leaving this kind of damage.
>
If you can figure out what package is preventing 'dpkg --configure -a'
from running, you can try 'dpkg -r badpackage' to get rid of it. You
might find that you also need to remove the packages that depend on
"badpackage".
You might want to 'man dpkg' and get familiar with that tool.
-Rob
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