Ubuntu Oneiric (11.10) DPKG error removing old Linux kernel

I stumbled into another trouble removing my obsolete packages after upgrading into Ubuntu Oneiric 11.10 with Linux kernel 3.00-12. The problem is with removing the old 64bit kernel 2.6.35-24. The Debian package name is 2.6.35-24. The error I got is following:

[13:41:34] user@machin:[/var/lib/dpkg/info]$ sudo apt-get -f install
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree      
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  linux-image-2.6.35-24-generic
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 31 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 139 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
(Reading database ... 248250 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing linux-image-2.6.35-24-generic ...
Examining /etc/kernel/postrm.d .
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/initramfs-tools 2.6.35-24-generic /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-24-generic
update-initramfs: Deleting /boot/initrd.img-2.6.35-24-generic
run-parts: executing /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-extlinux 2.6.35-24-generic /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.35-24-generic
P: Checking for EXTLINUX directory... found.
P: Writing config for /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic...
E: /usr/share/syslinux/debian/extlinux: No such file or directory
run-parts: /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-extlinux exited with return code 1
Failed to process /etc/kernel/postrm.d at /var/lib/dpkg/info/linux-image-2.6.35-24-generic.postrm line 328.
dpkg: error processing linux-image-2.6.35-24-generic (--remove):
 subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 linux-image-2.6.35-24-generic
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

The highlighted lines told me the error is caused by the postrm script called zz-extlinux located in /etc/kernel/postrm.d/. I don't know how I managed to have extlinux installed on my system. If I am not mistaken booting is still managed by grub-2. So, I decided to remove both extlinux and linux-image-2.6.35-24-generic. But, since my DPKG is already going crazy removing linux-image-2.6.35-24-generic and failing on zz-extlinux, I have to remove the old Linux image first. I quickly patched the zz-extlinux script with an "exit 0" at top followed by an "sudo apt-get -f install". One could also make it non-executable as following as a solution, followe:

sudo chmod -x /etc/kernel/postrm.d/zz-extlinux; sudo apt-get -f install

This solved my problem removing the Linux image. Now, I guess one can also remove extlinux considering Grub-2 is the bootloader.

sudo apt-get remove --purge extlinux

Ubuntu Oneiric 11.10 - problem with package dictionaries-common

I started getting troubles with dictionaries-common package right from the beginning of upgrading into Ubuntu Oneiric (11.10). The error message looks kind of like the following:

Setting up dictionaries-common (1.11.5ubuntu1) ...
update-default-wordlist: Question empty but elements installed for class "wordlist"
  dictionaries-common/default-wordlist: return code: "0", value: ""
  Choices: , Manual symlink setting
  shared/packages-wordlist: return code: "10" owners/error: "shared/packages-wordlist doesn't exist"
  Installed elements: american (American English)
  Please see "/usr/share/doc/dictionaries-common/README.problems", section
  "Debconf database corruption" for recovery info.
update-default-wordlist: Selected wordlist "" 
does not correspond to any installed package in the system
and no alternative wordlist could be selected.
dpkg: error processing dictionaries-common (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 255
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of xscreensaver-data-extra:
 xscreensaver-data-extra depends on dictionaries-common; however:
  Package dictionaries-common is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing xscreensaver-data-extra (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
Errors were encountered while processing:
 dictionaries-common
 xscreensaver-data-extra
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

May be I was too quick to have skimmed over the error message and did not realize what is missing. It looks like the problem actually is that I do not have any word-list installed (or, somehow uninstalled during the distribution upgrade process) on my machine for the dictionary to point to. The quick solution is to install the preferred word-list as following:

sudo apt-get install wamerican-insane

 This should remove fix the package installation error with dictionaries-common package.

Removing "RC" packages on Debian/Ubuntu

If you do "dpkg -l", sometimes you will get to see a long list of packages with the following details:

• rc  package-name  0.4-3  package-details

Note the "rc" status at the beginning of the package description. Some packages will show up in the "dpkg -l" output even after removing them. The reason behind this is - packages with "rc" status indicate that the packages have been removed but some configuration files for those packages are left on the system.

To remove these packages, do the following:

• sudo dpkg --purge package-name

For a list of packages, run the following:

• dpkg -l | grep ^rc | cut -d ' ' -f3 | xargs sudo dpkg --purge

Debian/Ubuntu: stopping a package from upgrade

• Find package name
  

  dpkg -l | grep "partial-name"
  

• Set package to hold
  

  echo "full-package-name hold" | dpkg --set-selections

• Set package to un-hold
  

  echo "full-package-name install" | dpkg --set-selections