Major libc6 problems (with libc6 2.1.97-1 and friends)

["C.M. Connelly" <c@eskimo.com>]

I just had hours of ``fun'' after typing the fateful command
``apt-get upgrade'' and having my glibc packages upgraded from
2.1.3-13 to 2.1.97-1.

Once the process was complete, trying to start any new programs
(including stuff like `ls') failed, after rebooting, I had lots of
``Illegal instruction'' errors affecting programs such as `login',
and ended up having to jump through an enormous number of hoops to
downgrade the libraries.  Luckily, I still had the older packages
in my package cache (because they are no longer available from the
Debian archives!).

Among other things, it was impossible to log into the machine
(outside of the single-user mode root login, which doesn't use
/bin/login).  Running /bin/login resulted in Illegal instruction
errors, with segfaults if you typed C-d to terminate the program.
Using the debugging libraries (with LD_LIBRARY_PATH) allowed you
to get a login: prompt, but the program still failed.

Downgrading was especially fun, because the set of packages that
constitute the C libraries has changed, meaning that some of the
files in the newer packages are overwritten by the older packages,
and the system won't allow you to do that without a lot of
coaxing.  The libnss-db package, which is new, and not needed with
the older libc6 packages, is marked essential, and can only be
removed with dpkg and the --force-remove-essential flag.
/sbin/ldconfig is now included in the libc6 package, which means
that attempting to downgrade the libc6 package results in ldconfig
vanishing.  That leaves dpkg in a chicken-and-egg situation where
it refuses to install ldso, which contains /sbin/ldconfig, because
it can't find ldconfig.

I don't know exactly what the problem here is, but you might want
to consider putting your libc6 packages on hold, or avoiding
upgrades until you hear that everything's fine -- unless, of
course, you have lots of time and patience, a complete set of
older libc6 packages, and maybe an extra bootable partition
somewhere.

(Although it's unlikely that this information is important, my
system is a PowerCenter 132 -- an ``old world'' Mac clone.)

  CMC

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 Behind the counter a boy with a shaven head stared vacantly into space, 
 a dozen spikes of microsoft protruding from the socket behind his ear.
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   C.M. Connelly               c@eskimo.com                   SHC, DS
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