ISSUE RESOLVED Many thanks to all The solution was provided by Jan For info and for the sake of anyone else experiencing similar problems. I did a dpkg -L <package>|less for every apache package. It immediately showed some of the common files which should have been there weren't. So: aptitude purge <each of the packages in turn> This worked but gave a list of directories it could not remove as they were non-empty, so I manually removed each of these. Then did a aptitude install apache2 Lo and behold, it is now working. Where I had gone wrong previously was that I had initially installed apache2 and so just did a aptitude purge apache2 not each individual package seperately. I really do appreciate the time and effort given by others to help me with this problem Keith -- Keith Williams www.jogle2010.org.uk www.westnorfolkrspca.org.uk I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later. - Mitch Hedberg Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm in two leaps.