Bug#710031: texlive-latex-base: Override of the "ifthen" package in babel is broken

[Benjamin Berg <benjamin@sipsolutions.net>]

Package: texlive-latex-base
Version: 2013.20130530-1
Followup-For: Bug #710031

Hi,

I just ran across a similar bug too. The issue seems to be that an old
version of babel.sty is still around, even though there is a newer
version available.

ie. there exists the file /var/lib/texmf/tex/generic/babel/babel.sty
which is from the texlive 2009 package apparently (I don't see why it
might still exist, "dpkg -S" does not find it, and I removed it manually
now).

There is also /usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/generic/babel/babel.sty
which is the right version, and if you run the following commands,
everything starts to work fine (suggested by the babel maintainer,
Javier Bezos):

  rm /var/lib/texmf/tex/generic/babel/babel.sty
  rmdir /var/lib/texmf/tex/generic/babel/
  mktexlsr /var/lib/texmf/
 
No idea how that could happen, but it seems to me there is a bug in
the pre/post install/remove scripts. The old texlive should *not*
leave old files installed.

Benjamin

PS: The issue seems to happen inside the "\ifthenelse" command override
that babel does if "ifthen" is loaded. Though it seems to be
mostly a version incomaptibility between the old babel.sty and the
new babel.def.

> (/var/lib/texmf/tex/generic/babel/babel.sty
> Package: babel 2008/07/08 v3.8m The Babel package
[...]
> (/usr/share/texlive/texmf-dist/tex/generic/babel/babel.def
> File: babel.def 2013/05/16 v3.9f Babel common definitions