How to fix broken synaptic updates: "Package is in a very bad inconsistent state"

"You might want to give aptitude a try, which has better handling of dependencies:

sudo aptitude remove mysql-server-5.0"

"The dpkg error that you have there suggests that the problem occurs when dpkg is trying to actually remove the package. (At the end of the day, apt-get and Synaptic and the like hand off the actual work to dpkg.)

Have you tried doing exactly what the message says and re-installing first?

apt-get install --reinstall mysql-server-5.0

As silly as it might sound, if dpkg is choking during the removal process (because some file it's supposed to remove has gone missing in the interim) then reinstalling and then removing can sometimes help. Make sure that mysql is not running before you try to install it or remove it, as nagul suggests."
"The dpkg error that you have there suggests that the problem occurs when dpkg is trying to actually remove the package. (At the end of the day, apt-get and Synaptic and the like hand off the actual work to dpkg.)

Have you tried doing exactly what the message says and re-installing first?

apt-get install --reinstall mysql-server-5.0

As silly as it might sound, if dpkg is choking during the removal process (because some file it's supposed to remove has gone missing in the interim) then reinstalling and then removing can sometimes help. Make sure that mysql is not running before you try to install it or remove it, as nagul suggests."

"dpkg -r --force-remove-reinstreq <package> removes a package without checking if it requires reinstallation.

After that you should be able to reinstall the package with your preferred package manager."