e.g.
sudo apt-get install ncurses-bin -f Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done ncurses-bin is already the newest version. 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? dpkg: error: parsing file '/var/lib/dpkg/status' near line 16892 package 'smbclient': `Depends' field, reference to `libtdb1': version contains ` ' E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
The solution:
Open /var/lib/dpkg/status in e.g. vim and remove the extra space: change from
16892 Depends: samba-common (= 2:3.6.6-3), libc6 (>= 2.10), libcap2 (>= 2.10), libcomerr2 (>= 1.01), libgssapi-krb5-2 (>= 1.10+dfsg~), libk5crypto3 (>= 1.6.dfsg.2), libkrb5-3 (>= 1.10+dfsg~), libldap-2.4-2 (>= 2.4.7), libpopt0 (>= 1.14), libreadline6 (>= 6.0), libtalloc2 (>= 2.0.4~git20101213), libtdb1 (>= 1.2.7+git201 1214), libtinfo5, libwbclient0 (>= 2:3.6.0~pre3), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
to
16892 Depends: samba-common (= 2:3.6.6-3), libc6 (>= 2.10), libcap2 (>= 2.10), libcomerr2 (>= 1.01), libgssapi-krb5-2 (>= 1.10+dfsg~), libk5crypto3 (>= 1.6.dfsg.2), libkrb5-3 (>= 1.10+dfsg~), libldap-2.4-2 (>= 2.4.7), libpopt0 (>= 1.14), libreadline6 (>= 6.0), libtalloc2 (>= 2.0.4~git20101213), libtdb1 (>= 1.2.7+git2011214), libtinfo5, libwbclient0 (>= 2:3.6.0~pre3), zlib1g (>= 1:1.1.4)
You can now continue as normal.
What not to do:
sudo rm /var/lib/dpkg/status
because it gives (if you do touch /var/lib/dpkg/status)
sudo apt-get install ncurses-bin Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done The following extra packages will be installed: gcc-4.7-base libc-bin libc6 libgcc1 libtinfo5 multiarch-support Suggested packages: glibc-doc debconf debconf-2.0 locales
etc.
In other words, suddenly no packages are registered as being installed anymore.
To fix it
sudo cp /var/backups/dpkg.status.0 /var/lib/dpkg/status
And then edit the file as shown above.
