Bug#267413: tetex-bin: Impossible to process a .tex
Short notes the debian-admin:
- Please read the section starting "2. What happens on the buildds", you
might be able to help in debugging, or to provide ressources.
- You should do some dpkg-reconfigure'ing, at least on merulo, because
of changes in debconf defaults introduced long ago. A detailed
description of what should be done is at the end, below "3. Detailed
description what debian-admin should do". The rationale why I think
this is the right thing to do comes first.
Pierre Machard <pmachard@debian.org> wrote:
> On Sun, Aug 22, 2004 at 11:14:23PM +0200, Frank Küster wrote:
>> Pierre Machard <pmachard@debian.org> wrote:
>>
>> > Package: tetex-bin
>> > Version: 2.0.2-19
>> > Severity: grave
>> > Justification: renders package unusable
>> >
>> > zope fails to build from source on sparc,ia64 because of a problem in
>> > computing zope-policy.sgml
>> >
>> > debiandoc2ps debian/doc/zope-policy.sgml
>> >
>> > sparc:
>> > http://buildd.debian.org/fetch.php?&pkg=zope&ver=2.6.4-1.2&arch=sparc&stamp=1093178464&file=log&as=raw
>> >
>> > ia64:
>> > http://buildd.debian.org/fetch.php?&pkg=zope&ver=2.6.4-1.2&arch=ia64&stamp=1093177931&file=log&as=raw
>> >
>> > Can you please fix this anonying issue ?
>>
>> I cannot reproduce it here, on i386 (but that can hardly be the cause)
>> and with an older debiandoc2sgml. Is this reproducible anywhere, or does
>> one have to log into the buildds (and how can this be done)?
>
> use merulo.debian.org (to log into the sid chroot: dchroot sid)
> If you want to reproduce it and help me building zope
> Add /home/pmachard/bin/ to your $PATH (It is txt2man).
Thank you, trying on merulo helped me find the cause (there!).
> If you simply want to debug it. Catch the file zope-policy.sgml in zope
> package, and run debiandoc2ps on it.
Well, I found out what the cause on merulo is. However, I can still not
imagine how this could happen on a buildd, where tetex-bin should always
be purged after a build, isn't it?
1. Comments and explanations regarding the situation on merulo
On merulo, I get:
frank@merulo:~$ debconf-show tetex-bin
debconf: DbDriver "passwords" warning: could not open /var/cache/debconf/passwords.dat: Permission denied
tetex-bin/updmap-failed:
tetex-bin/hyphen: ngerman[=naustrian-neue_Rechtschreibung], french[=patois]
tetex-bin/oldcfg: true
* tetex-bin/upd_map: false
* tetex-bin/cnf_name:
* tetex-bin/fmtutil: false
* tetex-bin/use_debconf: true
tetex-bin/fmtutil-failed:
tetex-bin/groupname: users
tetex-bin/userperm: false
tetex-bin/groupperm: true
* tetex-bin/lsr-perms: true
* tetex-bin/texmf: false
frank@merulo:~$
The debconf defaults of tetex-bin have changed over a year ago, and one
other a couple of weeks ago. Specifically,
tetex-bin/{upd_map,fmtutil,texmf} are true by default since 2.0.2-4.2 in
Jun 03 (but texmf has gone, meanwhile), and tetex-bin/use_debconf is
false since 2.0.2-17.
The first change is documented well in changelog.Debian, the second in
NEWS.Debian. We have considered that it would be a debconf abuse to set
all the changed questions to unseen again, annoying people, and doubling
the information that is yet in the changelog (or NEWS.Debian). Every
user running unstable is always told that he knows what he's doing, and
should follow development somehow - or at least read changelogs and
NEWS.Debian, and I fear this also applies to debian-admin.
*************************************************
2. What happens on the buildds
... I do not know. AFAIK, the buildd's always purge packages they
install as build-dependencies, and only keep build-essential. If
tetex-bin is purged, it will be reinstalled with the current debconf
defaults, and those should give a configuration that allows usage of
debiandoc2* without problems.
I have no clue how we could find this out, except by somehow running
"debiandoc2ps -v zope-policy.smgl" on a buildd, with the additional -v
option which is missing in the normal zope package.
Of course we do not want to upload a package to the normal queues just
for debugging. debian-admins, is it possible to provide a minimal
package that does nothing but execute this command (plus the minimal
packaging around it), and put it at the top of the queue? Or is there
any other possibility, or do you have an idea what could have happened?
*************************************************
3. Detailed description what debian-admin should do
To accept the changed debconf defaults, "dpkg-reconfigure tetex-bin"
should be run, and the following choices made:
Question:
Use update-fmtutil to automatically generate fmtutil.cnf?
Answer: YES
Question:
Use update-updmap to automatically generate updmap.cfg?
Answer: YES
Question:
Manage language.dat with debconf?
Answer: NO
In addition to the last change, the NO answer, you need to follow the
advice in NEWS.Debian:
,----
| If you have previously used debconf management for language.dat, you
| can continue doing so. If you want to get back to the new default, the
| best way is to copy /usr/share/tetex-base/language.dflt to
| /etc/texmf/language.dat, "dpkg-reconfigure tetex-bin" and chose not to
| manage this file by debconf.
`----
This, of course, implies, that no hyphenation patterns that are not
shipped with the tetex packages have been added to language.dat, like
ukhyphen.tex.
That's all, for merulo - I didn't check whether changes are needed on
any other machines. However, I had a look at
/x/org/chroots/user/unstable/var/cache/debconf/config.dat on caballero,
which has one wrong setting: use_debconf is still true,
Name: tetex-bin/use_debconf
Template: tetex-bin/use_debconf
Value: true
the other three are up-to-date.
Regards, Frank
--
Frank Küster, Biozentrum der Univ. Basel
Abt. Biophysikalische Chemie
Reply to: