[SOLVED] Aptitude issue Ubuntu 10.10

[johwiltb]

So I've had a problem for 2 weeks now and I cannot seem to find anybody who knows how to fix it nor any forums or Google ninja's that can find anything out about it.

The problem is that whenever I attempt to install anything, I have major issues. Using apt-get, aptitude, the software center, all of them, I have issues with a snort installation that went wrong apparently weeks ago and now pop up in every single install. Here is an example while installing virtualbox-ose

......
Processing triggers for menu ...
Processing triggers for python-support ...
Setting up snort (2.8.5.2-2build1) ...
 * Stopping Network Intrusion Detection System  snort                                                                                                                    * No running snort instance found
 * Starting Network Intrusion Detection System  snort                                                                                                            [fail] 
invoke-rc.d: initscript snort, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing snort (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up netams (3.4.3+dfsg1-4) ...
dpkg: error processing netams (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 10
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of netams-dbg:
 netams-dbg depends on netams (= 3.4.3+dfsg1-4); however:
  Package netams is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing netams-dbg (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Setting up libqt4-opengl (4:4.7.0-0ubuntu4.2) ...
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
                                                                                                          Setting up libvncserver0 (0.9.7-2) ...
Setting up virtualbox-ose (3.2.8-dfsg-2ubuntu1) ...

....

ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
Processing triggers for menu ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 snort
 netams
 netams-dbg
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Any ideas how to get rid of those issues?

[Rubberman]

Have you tried removing snort altogether from the system first?

[johwiltb]

yeah, that was the first thing I tried. Still no dice.

[Rubberman]

So, removing it with the package manager did not remove it from the system? Odd. You need to go into system services and first disable snort, then probably remove all its cruft from the system drive.

[johwiltb]

So what would be the best way of doing that? Is it removing a init.d file? I'm new to ubuntu, coming from arch, and understanding init scripts are really not coming to me easily

[johwiltb]

So I did that, made sure snort wasn't still on the system, removed the init.d scripts, and wiped snort off the system completely, and I still have the issues. Kinda getting to me because I spent awhile setting it up how I liked it and it just won't fix itself. any other ideas?

[johwiltb]

So it turns out I had to uninstall netams first, then attempt to uninstall snort. Apparently, though, the first time i uninstall snort, it deleted the /etc/init.d/snort file, so I created a virtual machine, installed snort, and copied over the file to my broken system. Then uninstalled it and it worked finally. I also found that using aptitude, snort wanted to install netams, but with apt-get it didn't. I don't know why, but it did.