Missing PreRemoval Script breaks dpkg.
 

I tried to purge the installation of a broken package, which I understood removed the entire package, configuration files, everything.

When I still couldn't install the package again, I looked at the files in /usr/lib/ and notioced that the packages files were still there.

This is where I did something really silly; I manually deleted directories containing the package.

I then downloaded the latest DEB files and tried to install the package from scratch.

This is the error I get:

Is there a way of getting apt-get or dpkg to disregard the prior installation? Failing which how easy is it to resurrect deleted files? I used "rm -rf".

The machine has Linux Mint Lisa.

I'd suggest that you try installing the package with :

sudo dpkg -i --force-all fpc_2.6.0-120824_amd64.deb
... if that's the package you originally had installed.

In Ubuntu and probably also Mint version ? ,
the package fpc_2.6.0 is just a 6.5 kB metapackage that pulls all "fp" :
http://packages.ubuntu.com/quantal/fpc-2.6.0
( fpc_2.6.0-120824_amd64.deb from sourcforge.jp is 34 MB.)

.

Hi Knudfi, thanks for the help.

It's not really working, I'm afraid, apt-get seems to be totally borked.

In view of the other issue you helped me with (namely gcc not compiling properly), it's probably not worth trying to fix it and reinstallation is most likely a better bet.

This time I'll upgrade to Vanilla Ubuntu as the derivatives seem to throw up slight problems.

Are you in the wrong directory ? ( Please use the pwd command.)

I.e. : sudo dpkg -i --force-all Downloads/fpc_2.6.0-120824_amd64.deb ,
if that's where the package is.

Or :
cd Downloads/ && sudo dpkg -i --force-all fpc_2.6.0-120824_amd64.deb