Bug#653355: Preinst can fail if readlink doesn't support -e

[sacrificial-spam-address@horizon.com]

Package: libc6
Version: 2.13-24
Severity: minor

I was trying to upgrade a Very Old installation, and the preinst failed with

> Checking for services that may need to be restarted...
> Checking init scripts...
> readlink: invalid option -- e
> Try `readlink --help' for more information.
> dpkg: error processing libc6_2.13-24_i386.deb (--install):
>  subprocess pre-installation script returned error exit status 1

coreutils 5.2.1-2 doesn't support the -e or -m flags, only -f.

I know it's a pretty annoying corner case, but libc is kind of *important*
and it would be nice if it worked even in extreme cases like this.
I can't install a current coreutils until I get libc upgraded, and
it's being a bit of a pain.

(It's being very exciting because apt-get segfaults trying to read
a current Packages file, so I'm doing lots of manual downloading and
"dpkg -i" to get apt upgraded.)


I got around it by patching /var/lib/dpkg/tmp.ci/preinst before the
preinst was run, and have now hit the kernel version 2.6.26 check.
The exceitement continues...