Re: Question about dpkg -r

[Ian Jackson <ian@davenant.greenend.org.uk>]

Hope Duryea writes ("Re: Question about dpkg -r "):
> There isn't a test up-front to see whether the dir (or
> the dir the symlink points to) is empty -- rmdir() is
> called just if no other package is using it, and a
> test is then done to see if errno was ENOTEMPTY. But
> when rmdir() is used on a symlink, it just removes the
> symlink

WTF?  Have you verified this with strace ?  rmdir(2) on a symlink
should give ENOTDIR.

I suspect that what's happening is that some broken maintainer script
is deleting the link.  If the kernel is behaving as you describe then
IMO it is broken.

/usr as a symlink should work properly.

Ian.