Why is my Ubuntu dpkg not installed?
After restarting it, I tried to update it using apt-get dist-upgrade. It gives me the following error: I then assumed that something was being installed when the server was shutdown for an unknown reason. I tried to apt-get install -f. It gives me the following:
What to do if dpkg is not preconfigured?
Given the number of packages you need to reinstall, and the fact that many essential packages are affected, I think it’s time to back any files you need from the VM somewhere else, and create a new VM from scratch. That is extremely likely to take much less time than attempting to fix the current VM.
Why is dpkg-deb not found in path?
Add those directories ( /usr/local/sbin, /usr/sbin and /sbin) to your user’s PATH. There’s no harm in it and it’s often useful – many “root” commands can provide useful info on things you have read access to even if they can’t change anything because your non-root user doesn’t have write access.
How to restore dpkg-deb in mint 18.3?
To restore dpkg-deb, you should try re-installing dpkg: download the appropriate package file (Mint 18.3 is based on Ubuntu 16.04, so look for Xenial on this page to get the appropriate links; the download link I’m giving here assumes you’re using amd64) If that fails, you’ll need to resort to a more manual approach as suggested in arved’s answer:
Do you want to continue using APT-dpkg?
Done The following packages have been kept back: mendeleydesktop 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded. 15 not fully installed or removed. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue?
Is there a syslog for unattended dpkg.log?
After the fsck, the system ran fine, and the files stored on it seems undamaged. No logs on the VM host are able to tell what happened. On the server, there is no syslog for the time where the server crashed. However, unattended-upgrades-dpkg.log shows the following with nothing after that, so it might be something involved in the crash: