Short Tip: Remove packages on Debian systems with ultimate force

Due to my job I “have to” use Debian based systems. It now happened that a package from a test repository was totally broken beyond repair:

Removing xyz ...
dpkg: error processing xyz (--remove):
subprocess post-removal script returned error exit status 10
Errors were encountered while processing:
xyz
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

All workarounds with purge, remove-reinstreq, -P or force-all failed. In the end, this tip showed how to remove the package manually:

First, check all files with dpkg -L xyz. Remove them manually, and afterwards delete the file /var/lib/dpkg/info/xyz.postrm. Last but not least, launch

apt-get remove --purge xyz

Be aware that this method is pretty evil. If you don’t know why that method is evil, don’t use it!

..

Complete Story