OverlordQ wrote:
http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/reference/ch-package.en.html#s-recover
if that doesn't work, i think you're pretty much SOL.
Where did you get the .deb you installed with dpkg?
s-recover does not seem to be a valid section. Do you have the numbered section that link refers to?
As far as the deb, it was built from an rpm using alien. Could be part of the problem, but imho it shouldn't cause a failure such as this. But I do accept that this could just be a situation where playing with fire can cause issues

Replacing the status with the backup resolved the issue, and the deb package that I installed still functions, so this is a bit of a moot topic, but I'm just curious why installing an arbitrary package would destroy apt
Now for the shameless plug: The package was the Kerio MailServer, for whom which I work for (Technical Support Engineer). At the current time we do not support Debian, we only provide rpm packages on the Linux side, although I managed to get it working on my Debian system by using alien and building a custom init script
