I tried to reproduce this in 15.10 but couldn't. Which precise packages are involved here? "purge emacs" alone should do nothing much at all, whereas "apt-get purge emacs24-nox" produces something a little bit closer to what you are reporting. What versions of emacs24* and apel did you have installed?
** Changed in: emacs24 (Ubuntu) Status: New => Incomplete -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Desktop Packages, which is subscribed to emacs24 in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1512986 Title: package emacs24-nox (not installed) failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Status in emacs24 package in Ubuntu: Incomplete Bug description: dick@dick-OptiPlex-360:~$ sudo apt-get purge emacs [sudo] password for dick: Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done Package 'emacs' is not installed, so not removed 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Setting up emacs24 (24.3+1-2ubuntu1) ... Install apel for emacs24 install/apel: byte-compiling for emacs24, logged in /tmp/elc.cuyUS7lLWUqb /usr/lib/emacsen-common/packages/install/apel: 42: cd: can't cd to /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/apel ERROR: install script from apel package failed dpkg: error processing package emacs24 (--configure): subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: emacs24 E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1) ProblemType: Package DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04 Package: emacs24-nox (not installed) ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.19.0-31.36~14.04.1-generic 3.19.8-ckt7 Uname: Linux 3.19.0-31-generic i686 ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.18 AptOrdering: emacs: Install emacs24: Remove emacs24-nox: Install emacs24-nox: Configure emacs: Configure Architecture: i386 Date: Wed Nov 4 16:18:55 2015 DuplicateSignature: package:emacs24-nox:(not installed):subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-10-27 (7 days ago) InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Beta i386 (20150805) RelatedPackageVersions: dpkg 1.17.5ubuntu5.4 apt 1.0.1ubuntu2.10 SourcePackage: emacs24 Title: package emacs24-nox (not installed) failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install) To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/emacs24/+bug/1512986/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages Post to : desktop-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~desktop-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp