dpkg

A quick note for fixing a broken package system: some installation or cleaning procedure broke my package system. I could no longer install anything with apt and I was getting warnings from the system. I ran

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -f install
sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update –fix-missing
sudo dpkg –configure -a
# etc...

and nothing resolved this issue. A particular .deb package was being resistant, however, and seemed to be the root of the problem (in particular it was Tkinter). I finally came across this page, which suggested running

sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite path-to-the-deb-file

for the .deb file which was causing issues. Running this command worked perfectly, system errors were removed (from the top bar) and I could run normal apt commands without issue. I guess certain .deb files can be resistant, especially when used around by other dependencies.