Can't install any packages!

SammyBoy

Yesterday I was downloading ARM4ALL but since it was taking a very long time I thought it would be a good idea to pull the plug on the power(I found out very soon it wasn't) now I am unable to install any packages whatsoever. I think the dpkg file is corrupted but I cannot be sure, here is the error I received after trying to install one of the needed packages for ARM4ALL:

dpkg: error processing package libxml2:armhf (--configure):
package is in a very bad inconsistent state; you should
reinstall it before attempting configuration
Errors were encountered while processing:
libxml2:armhf
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

jonnykesh

@sammyboy Purge the package and try again.
So sudo apt-get purge package.name

SammyBoy

@jonnykesh thanks for the reply BTW is this command better to use or should I just stick to your command?

The command is:

sudo apt-get remove --purge samba samba-common

jonnykesh

@sammyboy Same thing. Remove does exactly that, removes the package. Purge or the --purge flag will also remove any related config files.
EDIT: Why are you removing samba? I thought your issue was something else?

mitu

@sammyboy said in Can't install any packages!:

command

The command you quoted will remove any support for file shares, so won't be able to copy over ROMs over Samba from a PC. Run

sudo apt-get -y install --reinstall libxml2

then run

sudo apt-get -f install

If you don't get any errors, try re-installing whatever package you were installing initially.

SammyBoy

@jonnykesh Yeah I copied that code from another thread from raspberrypi.org

jonnykesh

@sammyboy Ok, good. I thought I had totally missed something!

SammyBoy

@jonnykesh and @mitu thank you for all the help now I can download and update packages again. I would have been able to do it without your without your help and once again thank you.

jonnykesh

@sammyboy No problem at all. In future if you want to cancel something Ctrl + C will interrupt it rather than just pulling the power. Now, that's not to say you won't get the same thing, it might happen but it is just a bit more graceful and should avoid it.
Good to hear you are back up and running.