the real issue is that there is no longer a /etc/init.d/inetd in debian, netkit has been removed and its two replacements use their own init script names, applying the patch would remove the errors but would just mean that inetd would not be restarted.
based on initial testing (i'd like a comment on this from someone who better understands bash though, if running them isn't safe then some more elaborate detection may be needed) it seems that when an inetd is removed but not purged it is safe to run its init script so the following code would be better. if [ -x /etc/init.d/openbsd-inetd ]; then invoke-rc.d openbsd-inetd restart fi if [ -x /etc/init.d/inetutils-inetd ]; then invoke-rc.d inetutils-inetd restart fi