ok, so i just typed this email once on a windows machine and of course it crashes when i hit "Send", so sorry if i send this twice on accident.
basically, i screwed up my debian install by force installing some rpm's. i was trying to get dvd playback working, and mplayer sounded like what i wanted. unfortunately only rpms (not debs) exist for it as of this moment. so i was going through this process of downloading rpms and converting them to satisfy mplayers dependancies. things went well until i needed libtinfo.so.5, which rpmfind *claimed* would be provided by the ncurses rpm. unfortuantely, it didnt provide it. in fact, i had to do dpkg --force-all -i ncurses... in order to install it, which was dumb, i admit. it didnt finish installing because it encoutered an error - it could find libtinfo.so.5 so then i find myself in a situation where i cant install anything, or remove anything, even with force options. my current situation: apt-get check Reading Package Lists... Building Dependency Tree... E: The package ncurses needs to be reinstalled, but I can't find an archive for it. dpkg --force-all -r ncurses dpkg - warning, overriding problem because --force enabled: Package is in a very bad inconsistent state - you should reinstall it before attempting a removal. (Reading database ... 29683 files and directories currently installed.) Removing ncurses ... /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: error processing ncurses (--remove): subprocess pre-removal script returned error exit status 127 /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 127 Errors were encountered while processing: ncurses dpkg --force-all -i libncurses5_5.2.20010318-2_i386.deb ncurses-base_5.2.20010318-2_all.deb ncurses-bin_5.2.20010318-2_i386.deb (Reading database ... 29683 files and directories currently installed.) Preparing to replace libncurses5 5.2.20010318-2 (using libncurses5_5.2.20010318-2_i386.deb) ... /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: warning - old pre-removal script returned error exit status 127 dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ... /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: error processing libncurses5_5.2.20010318-2_i386.deb (--install): subprocess new pre-removal script returned error exit status 127 /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 127 dpkg: considering removing ncurses in favour of ncurses-base ... ncurses is not properly installed - ignoring any dependencies on it. dpkg: package ncurses requires reinstallation, but will remove anyway as you request. dpkg: yes, will remove ncurses in favour of ncurses-base. Preparing to replace ncurses-base 5.2.20010318-2 (using ncurses-base_5.2.20010318-2_all.deb) ... /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: warning - old pre-removal script returned error exit status 127 dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ... /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: error processing ncurses-base_5.2.20010318-2_all.deb (--install): subprocess new pre-removal script returned error exit status 127 /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 127 dpkg: considering removing ncurses in favour of ncurses-bin ... ncurses is not properly installed - ignoring any dependencies on it. dpkg: package ncurses requires reinstallation, but will remove anyway as you request. dpkg: yes, will remove ncurses in favour of ncurses-bin. Preparing to replace ncurses-bin 5.2.20010318-2 (using ncurses-bin_5.2.20010318-2_i386.deb) ... /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: warning - old pre-removal script returned error exit status 127 dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ... /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: error processing ncurses-bin_5.2.20010318-2_i386.deb (--install): subprocess new pre-removal script returned error exit status 127 /bin/sh: error while loading shared libraries: libtinfo.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory dpkg: error while cleaning up: subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 127 Errors were encountered while processing: libncurses5_5.2.20010318-2_i386.deb ncurses-base_5.2.20010318-2_all.deb ncurses-bin_5.2.20010318-2_i386.deb ls ~/temp/mplayer libncurses4_4.2-9.deb libncurses5_5.2.20010318-2_i386.deb libstdc++2-2.10.0-1.i386.rpm libstdc++2_2.10.0-2_i386.deb mplayer-0.17-1.20010501.i386.rpm mplayer_0.17-2.20010501_i386.deb ncurses-5.2-3.i386.rpm ncurses-base_5.2.20010318-2_all.deb ncurses-bin_5.2.20010318-2_i386.deb ncurses_5.2-4_i386.deb i really have no idea what to do at this point, and would really appreciate any pointers. thanks, jason [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------------------------------------------------- Mail2Web - Check your email from the web at http://www.mail2web.com/ .
