Re: pager and upgrades
Hi!
On Wed, 2020-02-26 at 19:53:09 -0700, Nicholas D Steeves wrote:
> Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au> writes:
> > I just upgraded a Buster system to today's unstable and got the below. I
> > think this should be regarded as a bug, but what is it a bug in? dpkg?
> >
> > Configuration file '/etc/smartd.conf'
> > ==> Modified (by you or by a script) since installation.
> > ==> Package distributor has shipped an updated version.
> > What would you like to do about it ? Your options are:
> > Y or I : install the package maintainer's version
> > N or O : keep your currently-installed version
> > D : show the differences between the versions
> > Z : start a shell to examine the situation
> > The default action is to keep your current version.
> > *** smartd.conf (Y/I/N/O/D/Z) [default=N] ? d
> > sh: 1: pager: not found
> > diff: standard output: Broken pipe
> > dpkg: error processing package smartmontools (--configure):
> > conffile difference visualizer subprocess returned error exit status 127
This looks like a variation of #856216, but see below.
> /usr/bin/pager should be a link to /etc/alternatives/pager, which should
> then link to a pager. On a minimal installation this should point to
> /bin/more, from util-linux.
>
> If I had to speculate, maybe /e/a/p is a broken link to something, and
> maybe there's a bug in the package that provides that alternative pager?
Right, that would be my guess too, the symlink would be dangling and then
the shell cannot execute it. And while I think this is a problem in the
provider of pager, I still think dpkg should be more robust in this kind
of situation and not fail like this. ISTR having some code around to
improve this, and will try to finish it up and merge for 1.20.x.
Thanks,
Guillem
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