Not replacing deleted config file /etc/default/burg?

Question

I uninstalled and purged BURG bootloader and all it's repositories and files but when I try to reinstall it, I get an error saying "Not replacing deleted config file /etc/default/burg" and when it shows that error, upon boot, my BURG has no themes and looks like GRUB. Any help?

Answer 1

Purging the package is not enough: ucf (update configuration files) protects the files. One way to avoid this is to force ucf default action. I didn't had much luck with confmiss in dpkg options, so I've read the ucf documentation.

1. override the default ucf action, to create configuration if it doesn't already exists:

export UCF_FORCE_CONFFMISS=1

2. purge the package:

apt-get purge burg

3. reinstall the package:

apt-get install burg

4. set back the ucf default action:

export UCF_FORCE_CONFFMISS=

Side note: you can use UCF_FORCE_CONFFNEW=1 to erase your configuration files, but use with caution.

Answer 2

Since purging the package can cause all kinds of dependency problems, here's a script to pull the problems out of apt, purge ucf, then get the config files back. It's disgusting to have to do this.

This is reinstall-purge-ucf:

#!/bin/bash
PACKAGE=$1
apt-get install --reinstall $PACKAGE | grep 'Not replacing deleted config file' | awk '{print $6}' | tr -d '[$]' | tr -d '[\r]' |  xargs -t -n 1 ucf -p 
apt-get install --reinstall $PACKAGE

Now do, for example:

# ./reinstall-purge-ucf php7.4-json
ucf -p /etc/php/7.4/mods-available/json.ini
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/19.3 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 191911 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../php7.4-json_7.4.30-1+deb11u1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking php7.4-json (7.4.30-1+deb11u1) over (7.4.30-1+deb11u1) ...
Setting up php7.4-json (7.4.30-1+deb11u1) ...
Processing triggers for libapache2-mod-php7.4 (7.4.30-1+deb11u1) ...
Processing triggers for php7.4-fpm (7.4.30-1+deb11u1) ...
NOTICE: Not enabling PHP 7.4 FPM by default.
NOTICE: To enable PHP 7.4 FPM in Apache2 do:
NOTICE: a2enmod proxy_fcgi setenvif
NOTICE: a2enconf php7.4-fpm
NOTICE: You are seeing this message because you have apache2 package installed.
Processing triggers for php7.4-cli (7.4.30-1+deb11u1) ...
Processing triggers for php7.4-phpdbg (7.4.30-1+deb11u1) ...

And then the files we need are there.

Answer 3

Purge the package,

Run dpkg -P burg

Reinstall

Answer 4

With apt, you have to add the parameter --reinstall like this:

sudo apt -y --reinstall install burg

It will reinstall deleted config files.
I don't know if apt exists in 16.04.