I use gentoo, and for fun I decided to install dpkg, so I can install .deb files, and I get this error when I try to install something, my command is dpkg -i filename.deb, in case that's wrong, the error is

dpkg: failed to open package info file `/usr/lib/db/status' for reading: No such file or directory

anyone know how to fix it, or can they post their file if they use debian

i will take a stab at this even though i only used debian a long time ago

rebuilding the dpkg database is tough and coppying one will be weird as well
try this to start
make the directory structure
/var/lib/dpkg
(you have /var/lib/db) don't remember it being db but if that's the error message use that
then
touch status info available

beyond that i would try what i do with rpm when i have to use it

dpkg -i --force-all

possibly that will skip the info stuff

no, I still get the same error. I don't know, I never really used debian before

I had the same problem on Gentoo with dpkg. I find that if there isnt a ebuild or for some reason it doesnt compile, I just install a debian package. Anyway, this is how to do it:

Use dpkg-deb, which comes with the dpkg ebuild:

dpkg-deb -x packagename.deb /var/tmp/packagename

cd /var/tmp/packagename

cp -vr * /

This just copies the relative executables and other shared files onto your filesystem. This technique isnt exactly pretty, but it works. You might want to make a note of what files it copies in case you want to later delete.