6.3.7 What to do if the dpkg command is broken

A broken dpkg may make it impossible to install any .deb files. A procedure like the following will help you recover from this situation. (In the first line, you can replace "links" with your favorite browser command.)

     $ links https://http.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/d/dpkg/
       ... download the good dpkg_version_arch.deb
     $ su
     password: *****
     # ar x dpkg_version_arch.deb
     # mv data.tar.gz /data.tar.gz
     # cd /
     # tar xzfv data.tar.gz

For i386, https://packages.debian.org/dpkg may also be used as the URL.