So I was trying to install a new package and it very cleverly decided somewhere in the Debian dependencies that I didn’t need a kernel. Thankfully, APT noticed and screamed loudly so that I would stop the insanity! However, a few packages had already been ripped out of the system and I had to do emergency repairs. ‘apt -f install’ does wonders.

However, it pulled out php4 and php4-mysql, as well as wordpress and gallery2. When I reinstalled and tried going to my sites, they all were screaming at me. For example, Wordpress 2 said:

Your PHP installation appears to be missing the MySQL which is required for WordPress.

but I knew it was blasted well installed. After pounding on the system to ensure it was there, restarting every service that could have been affected, logging into mysql, checking the config files, and searching the web, I remembered having a problem when I installed php4-mysql… so I used a little magic trick that (thank goodness!) worked.
dpkg-reconfigure php4-mysql
All I had to do was tell it to activate the php-mysql connection, and we were back. Jiminy, what a scare, though!