No fix to this yet?

ok, being annoyed by that for a long time now, i finally took the time to play around.
after all, it's something APT does and there's should be a way -- even with the crap NOKIA made out of it ...

so the situation is triggered by upstart -- upstart declares a predendency on
libc6 (>= 2.5.0-1), sysvinit-utils (>= 2.86.ds1-23) | busybox (>= 3:1.6.1.legal-1osso8)
libc6 is fine, but sysvinit-utils has no installation candidate anymore
in that case, busybox should be chosen, which is usually installed and in at least the version defined but most likely even more recent -- but that doesn't happen: APT tries to solve sysvinit-utils, fails miserably and that's it.
APT is designed to handle this kind of situation, but apparently NOKIA adheres to the same as maxime as MS: if you can't beat it, break it. they took a well working package management, crippled it and let it run it's course. why they couldn't simply use a debian as basis is beyond my understanding (but otoh, so are many stupid things NOKIA did with maemo/the n900).

the clean way out of this situation would be to fix APT (whoever has an account for the bugtracker may file a bugreport)
the next best, to fix upstart's predependencies -- removing sysvinit-utils from it (whoever has an account for the bugtracker may file a bugreport)
the easiest way would be to remove that predependency from /var/lib/dpkg/status:

- make a backup of /var/lib/dpkg/status
- open /var/lib/dpkg/status in an editor
- find the line
Package: upstart
- scroll down to the line
Pre-Depends: libc6 (>= 2.5.0-1), sysvinit-utils (>= 2.86.ds1-23) | busybox (>= 3:1.6.1.legal-1osso8)
- remove
sysvinit-utils (>= 2.86.ds1-23) |
from that line
- save

apt-get dist-upgrade should work again -- but beware! here it tries to uninstall almost the complete system! which dolt at NOKIA broke that because s/he didn't grasp the idea of the different stages, i don't want to know ...

Any advice would be appreciated.

I have nokia N900 / fremantle-1.3/. I upgraded bash to bash4 and did relink of all the current commands under /bin from busybox to bash4 using this command:

Not sure why but this has caused all the files to disappear under /bin. I would like to restore at least standard busybox binary but can't find where to download the package.

Please help by pointing to a repository where i can download the .deb package. Trying to use apt-get and using "application manager" has failed.

The binary of busybox was listed as follows before my change:

[RANT]Do not post in unrelated random thread!
Enable your nokia repositories!
Remember what you were doing always before screwing your device![/RANT]

Did you apply any more tweaks to the N900, like CSSU or thumb, busybox-power ...? What is the output of ???

Thanks for the reply. As I am not able to bring up shell, i am unable to execute anything. Also, I am not able to save any repository. I am trying to see if I could copy via bluethooth or someother method.

P.M. sent.

Thank you so much 4 the msg. I did reflash and restored things. Thank u