Bug#244601: tetex-bin: package fails to configure: Error: `mpost -ini -jobname=metafun -progname=mpost metafun.mp' failed
Hilmar Preusse <hille42@web.de> schrieb:
> On 22.05.04 Branden Robinson (branden@debian.org) wrote:
>> On Mon, May 17, 2004 at 10:34:37AM +0200, Frank Küster wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
>> > Was tetex-extra-1.0.2 in fact installed when the bug occurred
>> > first?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> > If not, how come that it is now installed?
>>
>> Because I installed it to see what would happen.
Then I wonder why apt installed tetex-extra_1.0.2 from woody, when your
tetex-bin and tetex-base package are 2.0.2 from sarge or sid. Note that
tetex-extra and tetex-base are from the same source package, so if you
have tetex-base_2.0.2 in your sources list, tetex-extra should become
the same version.
Do you have any explanation for this?
Unfortunately, since you have now installed tetex-extra_1.0.2, we cannot
find out whether there were more unregistered files on your system that
could be leftovers from this package.
> I guess, tetex-bin can be configured now. And I guess if you purge
> tetex-extra again "dpkg-reconfigure tetex-bin" will still run.
This would be good to check. If yes it means basically that there is not
error in the current tetex packages, but that there may have been one
earlier - or there was some bug in dpkg, apt or whatever earlier.
>> > Did you notice any tetex mess previously and tried to repair it
>> > manually? It looks like this.
>>
>> No, I did not.
>>
>> Even *with* tetex-extra installed, dpkg doesn't think any installed
>> package owns any files in /usr/share/texmf/web2c.
>>
> /usr/share/texmf/web2c is a soft link pointing to
> /var/lib/texmf/web2c/ . Some files in /var/lib/texmf/web2c/ are
> shipped by tetex-bin, some are generated during postin.
On Branden's system, /usr/share/texmf/web2c is _not_ a symlink. It is no
wonder that no package claims to own files in there, it just shouldn't
exist. One explanation for its existence would have been manual
intervention. Branden says he can exclude this.
I simply can't think of a different explanation. Some imagined dpkg bug
could lead to the error that a to-be-symlink is created as a
directory. But there is no code at all in Debian, AFAIS, that would copy
the files that we ship in /var/lib/texmf/web2c to that directory.
With some random user, I would just close this bug (at least this part
of the bug) because "it is clear that the user must have messed it
up". However, Branden is someone who probably knows what he's doing, and
knows when he says he remembers that he did nothing (and you're the only
one with admin rights on that machine, aren't you?).
Also, there's the other question how the metafun.mp file could be on the
system without tetex-extra installed. I have asked on debian-user-german
about a week ago, but so far nobody has found the file on his system.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel
Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie
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