Hi, dpkg seems to be totally broken :-
~~~~ $ sudo apt-get install node [sudo] password for aaronngray: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies: exim4-base : Depends: exim4-config (>= 4.82) but it is not going to be installed or exim4-config-2 Recommends: mailx node : Depends: ax25-node but it is not going to be installed Conflicts: nodejs-legacy E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). aaronngray@aarongray:/etc/apt$ apt-get -f install E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/dpkg/lock - open (13: Permission denied) E: Unable to lock the administration directory (/var/lib/dpkg/), are you root? aaronngray@aarongray:/etc/apt$ sudo apt-get -f install Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: gyp libc-ares-dev libc-ares2 libjs-node-uuid libjs-underscore liblockfile1 libv8-3.14-dev libv8-3.14.5 node-abbrev node-ansi node-ansi-color-table node-archy node-async node-block-stream node-combined-stream node-cookie-jar node-delayed-stream node-forever-agent node-form-data node-fstream node-fstream-ignore node-github-url-from-git node-glob node-graceful-fs node-gyp node-inherits node-ini node-json-stringify-safe node-lockfile node-lru-cache node-mime node-minimatch node-mkdirp node-mute-stream node-node-uuid node-nopt node-normalize-package-data node-npmlog node-once node-osenv node-qs node-read node-read-package-json node-request node-retry node-rimraf node-semver node-sha node-sigmund node-slide node-tar node-tunnel-agent node-underscore node-which Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following extra packages will be installed: exim4-config The following packages will be REMOVED: postfix The following NEW packages will be installed: exim4-config 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 0 B/501 kB of archives. After this operation, 1,129 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] Y Preconfiguring packages ... dpkg: error processing package postfix (--remove): package is in a very bad inconsistent state; you should reinstall it before attempting a removal Errors were encountered while processing: postfix E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) aaronngray@aarongray:/etc/apt$ sudo apt-get -f install postfix Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies: exim4-base : Depends: exim4-config (>= 4.82) but it is not going to be installed or exim4-config-2 Recommends: mailx E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). aaronngray@aarongray:/etc/apt$ sudo apt-get -f install exim4-config Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these: The following packages have unmet dependencies: exim4-config : Conflicts: postfix but 2.11.3-1 is to be installed E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution). aaronngray@aarongray:/etc/apt$ sudo apt-get -f install Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Correcting dependencies... Done The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required: gyp libc-ares-dev libc-ares2 libjs-node-uuid libjs-underscore liblockfile1 libv8-3.14-dev libv8-3.14.5 node-abbrev node-ansi node-ansi-color-table node-archy node-async node-block-stream node-combined-stream node-cookie-jar node-delayed-stream node-forever-agent node-form-data node-fstream node-fstream-ignore node-github-url-from-git node-glob node-graceful-fs node-gyp node-inherits node-ini node-json-stringify-safe node-lockfile node-lru-cache node-mime node-minimatch node-mkdirp node-mute-stream node-node-uuid node-nopt node-normalize-package-data node-npmlog node-once node-osenv node-qs node-read node-read-package-json node-request node-retry node-rimraf node-semver node-sha node-sigmund node-slide node-tar node-tunnel-agent node-underscore node-which Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them. The following extra packages will be installed: exim4-config The following packages will be REMOVED: postfix The following NEW packages will be installed: exim4-config 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. Need to get 0 B/501 kB of archives. After this operation, 1,129 kB of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y Preconfiguring packages ... dpkg: error processing package postfix (--remove): package is in a very bad inconsistent state; you should reinstall it before attempting a removal Errors were encountered while processing: postfix E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) aaronngray@aarongray:/etc/apt$ sudo apt-get -f reinstall postfix E: Command line option 'f' [from -f] is not known. aaronngray@aarongray:/etc/apt$ sudo apt-get reinstall postfix E: Invalid operation reinstall ~~~~ Is there anyway to fix this ? or am I better doing a reinstall ? Many thanks in advance, Aaron