Bug#883394: libc6: does not remove /etc/ld.so.nohwloc after all libc6-* packages are upgraded

[Aurelien Jarno <aurelien@aurel32.net>]

On 2017-12-03 11:52, Henrique de Moraes Holschuh wrote:
> Package: libc6
> Version: 2.24-11+deb9u2
> Severity: important
> 
> This seems to be a regression in the stretch-proposed-updates release
> 2.24.11+deb9u2, at least I did not observe it when going
> jessie->stretch, or in the 2.24.11->2.24.11+deb9u1 update.
> 
> And yes, I am sure the file was created by 2.24.11+deb9u2, since I
> noticed it due to etckeeper.

I confirm the issue, it's due to the fact that the libc6-i686
transitional package does not have the ld.so.nohwcap snippet in the
postinst script.

> Fix:
>   run dpkg-reconfigure libc6:amd64 after the update.  It detects that
>   /etc/ld.so.nohwcap is not needed anymore, and unlinks it.

A better fix is to remove the libc6-i686 transitional package before the
upgrade. It is useless and correctly detected as transitional by
deborphan. It also means that even if the file /etc/ld.so.nohwcap file
stays, the default i386 libc is already optimized for i686 and thus it
will not induce any drop in performance.

I therefore consider this bug harmless, and it clearly fixed a grave bug
rendering systems unusable. I however understand it is clearly annoying
for people using etckeeper, samhain, etc., so it will have to be fixed
in the next stable release, so that people is annoyed only once.

Aurelien

-- 
Aurelien Jarno                          GPG: 4096R/1DDD8C9B
aurelien@aurel32.net                 http://www.aurel32.net