On Thursday 31 January 2002 06:40 pm, ben wrote: > On Thursday 31 January 2002 06:35 pm, Robert L. Harris wrote: > > No such file (both 0 length). Is it possible to put a 0 length file and > > have it try to re-install or such? > > nah! you're screwed, as far as i know. if anyone knows better, speak up, > and save us all that horror. i've taken to making a backup of everything > that's text under /var/lib/dpkg. > > btw, don't cc to me. i read the list.
just a follow up on that--the same thing happened to me back in december, the crash during the download, that is. i tried to reconstruct the status file from what was left in /lost+found, getting syntax errors regardless of which editor i used. i managed, after about 2 weeks of farting around, to get the system back to a semi-functional state. some apps would run, some wouldn't; upgrade attempts were a plague of dependency issues, as well as cron jobs regularly crashing the whole machine. after the last such crash, i backed up what i really needed, trashed the rest, reinstalled, and i've been happy since. you could go the long way around it, as i did, and learn a lot about your system in the process, but if your concern is getting a stable system going soon, and you don't have a lot invested in what you have now, dump it and reinstall. ben
