Bug#425803: #425803 [FIXED 2007-11]: upgrade fails ... (still fails here)

["A. Costa" <agcosta@gis.net>]

On Sun, 15 Jul 2007 17:28:15 +0200
Frank Küster <frank@debian.org> wrote:

> I'm not sure what the latest advice in this report is, but it seems
> you need to put texlive-base first (which provides modes.mf),

...tried it, didn't work.

> or to
> run dpkg -i --force-confmiss on the packages separately, starting with
> texlive-base. 

Also that:

	% for f in texlive-base_2007-10_all.deb texlive-base-bin_2007-12_i386.deb texlive-latex-base_2007-10_all.deb ; do dpkg -i --force-confmiss $f ; done
	
But no luck.
 
> Or simply try removing the packages for which the postinst was already
> run (even if it failed).

Which packages are these, (some or all)?  And what if I need them, do I
reinstall only to fail again?

Thanks for the advice, though I'm not a fan of the "try this" school of
help; in the long run it's better to know the reason why something
should work, why it fails, or how it's supposed to work, what it does.
Not coincidentally that information is more useful for the BTS public
record -- others may read this looking for clues to the same or similar
problems.  Even when "try this" advice works, it tends to expire
quickly, whereas the theory and underlying mechanics of a program
usually has a longer shelf life.