Ok here is the fix that worked for me:

My box was running live when I did this.

First download deb to another host:

wget http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/pool/main/libi/libidn2/libidn2-0_2.0.5-1_amd64.deb

Then SCP that up to the box that is having issues.

Once the file is up on the box. Run this:

sudo dpkg -i /tmp/libidn2-0_2.0.5-1_amd64.deb

This was a downgrade for me and then I was able to update (apt-get) without issue.

At this point I do not know of any issues this will cause. Use at your own risk.


I succeeded to fix it:

  1. From another computer I downloaded the libidn2.so.0 deb file and moved it to USB.
  2. In recovery-mode, I succeeded to offline replace it with my file. Now wget, curl and the other networking command work!
  3. I ran update and upgrade successfully and installed gnome. (after the upgrade, I had to re-install again libidn2.so.0).
  4. Reboot and login page pops up (although it took longer than I used to).

Hope it helps!