Re: Bug#356476: texinfo - fails to install

[Norbert Preining <preining@logic.at>]

Dear teTeX maintainers!

I have a strange problem with texinfo and autobuilders:

On Son, 12 Mär 2006, Bastian Blank wrote:
> Package: texinfo
> Version: 4.8-6
> Severity: serious
> 
> > Automatic build of gmsh_1.64.0-1 on debian01 by sbuild/s390 85
> [...]
> > Setting up texinfo (4.8-6) ...
> > Running mktexlsr. This may take some time. ... done.
> > dpkg: error processing texinfo (--configure):
> >  subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
> > Setting up html2text (1.3.2a-3) ...

On Son, 12 Mär 2006, Bastian Blank wrote:
> On Sun, Mar 12, 2006 at 01:53:58PM +0100, Norbert Preining wrote:
> > Huuu, could you please run
> > 	sh -ex /var/lib/dpkg/info/texinfo.postinst configure
> > and send me the output. This can only happen in the kpsewhich call or in
> > the install-info call, and I need to know where.
> 
> As it only fails in the autobuilder, I can't provide a sh output, but strace
> shows the problem:
> 
> | execve("/usr/bin/kpsewhich", ["kpsewhich", "-var-value", "TEXMFSYSVAR"], [/* 26 vars */]) = 0
> | [...]
> | access("/usr/share/texmf/aliases", R_OK) = -1 ENOENT (No such file or directory)
> | fstat64(1, {st_mode=S_IFIFO|0600, st_size=0, ...}) = 0
> | mmap(NULL, 4096, PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE, MAP_PRIVATE|MAP_ANONYMOUS, -1, 0) = 0x77fe6000
> | write(1, "\n", 1)                       = 1
> | munmap(0x77fe6000, 4096)                = 0
> | exit_group(1)          
> 
> At this point, the postinstall script bails out.
> 
> The configuration succeds if I do it by hand after it failed one time, so I
> think it may some sort of recursive dependency, where the order of
> configuration is undefined.


For your information, the texinfo.postinst script contains:
        # update-fmtutil checks for /etc/texmf/fmt.d/00tex.cnf which
        # may not be present, also the update-fmtutil is already
        # present (config files are installed at config time!)
        # So we have to check for the existence of this file
        # before we can call update-fmtutil
        if [ -r /etc/texmf/fmt.d/00tex.cnf ] ; then
            if which update-fmtutil > /dev/null ; then update-fmtutil ;
fi
        fi
        if which mktexlsr >/dev/null; then update_lsr_files; fi
        # tetex might be unpacked but not configured, we have to check
        # wether kpsewhich can be run!
        #if which fmtutil-sys > /dev/null ; then 
        if kpsewhich --version > /dev/null 2>&1 ; then 
            build_format_if_format_exists --byfmt texinfo
            build_format_if_format_exists --byfmt cyrtexinfo
        fi

Where the call to kpsewhich -var-value TEXMFSYSVAR occurs in 
	build_format_if_format_exists

This seems to be a problem that tetex is not already configured.
Although I thought that this should NOT happen, namely that only with
tex-common installed a call to kpsewhich should succeed. But it seems
that it doesn't. Do you have an idea why?

And how can I check this or circumvent this? I assume that I have to
check whether tetex-base and or -bin is configured. But I don't
understand why the above call to kpsewhich fails. It is strange.

Best wishes

Norbert

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Norbert Preining <preining AT logic DOT at>             Università di Siena
gpg DSA: 0x09C5B094      fp: 14DF 2E6C 0307 BE6D AD76  A9C0 D2BF 4AA3 09C5 B094
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIFF (n.)
A book, the contents of which are totally belied by its cover. For
instance, any book the dust jacket of which bears the words. 'This
book will change your life'.
			--- Douglas Adams, The Meaning of Liff