Replacing a missing package on debian

I recently hit a problem where I wanted to install a package but debian had removed a dependency, and no package has a ‘provides’, thus breaking it.

There is a mechanism for coping with this.. it’s not ideal but is occasionally necessary. This is the procedure for policykit-1

First install equivs

$ sudo apt-get install equivs

Create the file policykit-1 containing

Section: misc
Priority: optional
Standards-Version: 3.9.2

Package: policykit-1
Version: 125-2
Depends: pkexec,polkitd
Description: Replacement for policykit-1 
 Replacement for policykit-1

(equivs-control policykit-1 will create a template for this)

Then

$ equivs-build policykit-1

This will create a .deb file which marks the package as installed, and equivalent to the (in this case) two packages that replaced it.

Then finally

$ dpkg -i policykit-1_125-2_all.deb