James Harper wrote:
I always thought that apt-get install --reinstall would reinstall a package, but it doesn't seem to work. I broke a file that belongs to a package (/etc/xen/scripts/vscsi) and want it reinstalled from the package source but it doesn't work - even if I delete the file, --reinstall doesn't put it back again.
It reinstalls a package, but leaves conffiles as you configured them. So if you delete or break a file in /etc, a reinstall will faithfully preserve that configuration. The right answer to this problem is etckeeper. Failing that, separate purge and install commands (if you can do so without a lot of dependency grief). Failing that, aptitude download <package name>, pull it open with dpkg -x, and grab the conffile in question.