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I tried ro remove some unused packages in debian with aptitude.
Apparently I left some conflicting packages and now aptitude refuses to run (same as apt-get) I get this error

apt-get: symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6: undefined symbol: _ZNSt7num_getIcSt19istreambuf_iteratorIcSt11char_traitsIcEEE2idE, version GLIBCXX_3.4

The obvious thing for me would be to install aptitude again. But this is an egg and chicken problem...

What should I do? dpkg works.

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71% accept rate
What command did you run to remove "unused packages"? – jscott Aug 29 '10 at 4:45
I fooled around with aptitude itself. I think I created the havoc trying to remove X11 and gcc (I don't use those, it's a webserver). – The Disintegrator Aug 29 '10 at 5:03
LOL, had to give you a point for the title "I broke aptitude" – JakeRobinson Aug 29 '10 at 5:54
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2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

You could try to install it using the .deb file from packages.debian.org.
(scroll to the bottom of the page and select the appropriate architecture)

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lucky me wget still works :-) I had to download several packages but now everything looks ok. Thanks – The Disintegrator Aug 29 '10 at 5:11
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up vote 2 down vote

To fix this issue, I would immediately UNDO what you've just done; take a look at /var/log/dpkg.log for a history of what you removed, and reinstall those packages using dpkg and their respective .deb files from http://packages.debian.org.

If you still want to find out what package (specifically) caused this failure, use the same list of packages above, and uninstall them one at a time until you run into the error.

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