Avoiding the conffile prompt
Every time that dpkg must install a new conffile that you have modified (and a removed file is only a particular case of a modified file in dpkg’s eyes), it will stop the upgrade and wait your answer. This can be particularly annoying for major upgrades. That’s why you can give predefined answers to dpkg with the help of multiple --force-conf* options:
--force-confold: do not modify the current configuration file, the new version is installed with a .dpkg-dist suffix. With this option alone, even configuration files that you have not modified are left untouched. You need to combine it with --force-confdef to let dpkg overwrite configuration files that you have not modified.
--force-confnew: always install the new version of the configuration file, the current version is kept in a file with the .dpkg-old suffix.
--force-confdef: ask dpkg to decide alone when it can and prompt otherwise. This is the default behavior of dpkg and this option is mainly useful in combination with --force-confold.
--force-confmiss: ask dpkg to install the configuration file if it’s currently missing (for example because you have removed the file by mistake).
If you use Apt, you can pass options to dpkg with a command-line like this:
$ apt-get -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confdef" -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confold" dist-upgrade