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Bug#366107: Installing tex-common gets stuck after giving invalid group for owning fonts



Package: tex-common
Version: 0.21
Severity: normal


I did a routine dist-upgrade.
tex-common asked what group should own the font cache, and I
misspelled the group name.

The first thing that happened was chown balking at the invalid
group name, causing a fault in "post-installation".

Retrying the dist-upgrade fails, as it tries to set up
tex-common again without asking the questions.  So I tried
dpkg-reconfigure tex-common to fix it.  I know the correct
group name after all.
But unfortunately, dpkg-reconfigure refuse to reconfigure
a damaged/not fully installed package. :-(
apt-get -f install also fails, it too blindly tries to 
set up tex-common using the bad group name.

My next try, which I consider excessive:
dpkg --force-depends --remove tex-common
apt-get install tex-common
And it _still_ tried to use the bad group without giving
me a chance to fix it.

Final attempt, fortunately tex-common doesn't have
that many settings:
dpkg --force-depends --purge tex-common
apt-get install tex-common

Still no questions asked, preconfiguring failed, but
the package was installed anyway. So I could run
dpkg-reconfigure tex-common and finally get the group name right.


Now, the ideal fix would be a package system that offers
the option of reconfiguring packages that fail post-installation.

A nice fix for tex-common, would be to do minimal validation
of the group name entered.  For example, see if
"getent groupname" works.  Shellscript test:

if getent group $GROUPNAME ; then echo ok ; else echo bad ; fi

This works for me, of course you want to do better than "echo",
i.e. bring up the group dialog box again on failure.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (900, 'testing'), (800, 'unstable'), (800, 'stable'), (700, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.17-rc3-mm1
Locale: LANG=nb_NO.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=nb_NO.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages tex-common depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]         1.5.0      Debian configuration management sy
ii  ucf                           2.009      Update Configuration File: preserv

tex-common recommends no packages.

Versions of packages tetex-base depends on:
ii  dpkg                          1.13.18    package maintenance system for Deb
ii  ucf                           2.009      Update Configuration File: preserv

Versions of packages tetex-bin depends on:
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0]     1.5.0          Debian configuration management sy
ii  debianutils               2.15.7         Miscellaneous utilities specific t
ii  dialog                    1.0-20060221-1 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii  dpkg                      1.13.18        package maintenance system for Deb
ii  ed                        0.2-20         The classic unix line editor
ii  libc6                     2.3.6-7        GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libfontconfig1            2.3.2-5.1      generic font configuration library
ii  libfreetype6              2.1.10-3       FreeType 2 font engine, shared lib
ii  libgcc1                   1:4.1.0-1+b1   GCC support library
ii  libice6                   6.9.0.dfsg.1-6 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  libjpeg62                 6b-12          The Independent JPEG Group's JPEG 
ii  libkpathsea4              3.0-16         path search library for teTeX (run
ii  libpaper1                 1.1.14-7       Library for handling paper charact
ii  libpng12-0                1.2.8rel-5     PNG library - runtime
ii  libpoppler0c2             0.4.5-4        PDF rendering library
ii  libsm6                    6.9.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System Session Management
ii  libstdc++6                4.1.0-1+b1     The GNU Standard C++ Library v3
ii  libt1-5                   5.1.0-2        Type 1 font rasterizer library - r
ii  libx11-6                  6.9.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System protocol client li
ii  libxaw7                   6.9.0.dfsg.1-6 X Athena widget set library
ii  libxext6                  6.9.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System miscellaneous exte
ii  libxmu6                   6.9.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System miscellaneous util
ii  libxp6                    6.9.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System printing extension
ii  libxpm4                   6.9.0.dfsg.1-6 X pixmap library
ii  libxt6                    6.9.0.dfsg.1-6 X Toolkit Intrinsics
ii  mime-support              3.36-1         MIME files 'mime.types' & 'mailcap
ii  perl                      5.8.8-4        Larry Wall's Practical Extraction 
ii  sed                       4.1.4-7        The GNU sed stream editor
ii  tetex-base                3.0-17         Basic library files of teTeX
ii  ucf                       2.009          Update Configuration File: preserv
ii  whiptail                  0.51.6-31      Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.3-11     compression library - runtime

Versions of packages tetex-extra depends on:
ii  dpkg                          1.13.18    package maintenance system for Deb
ii  tetex-base                    3.0-17     Basic library files of teTeX
ii  tetex-bin                     3.0-16     The teTeX binary files
ii  ucf                           2.009      Update Configuration File: preserv

-- debconf-show failed



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