Re: error using synaptic UPGRADE/INSTALL

[David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk>]

On Mon 13 Jun 2022 at 03:22:29 (+0000), Russell L. Harris wrote:
> Debian 11 AMD
> 
> At the end of my weekly UPGRADE session using synaptic, the system
> hung.  I restarted using the hardware RESET button.  The system
> booted and found a number of orphaned nodes.
> 
> When I started synaptic a message was displayed that I needed to run
> dpkg --configure -a.  When I ran that command, the following message
> is displayed:
> 
> root@penelope:/home/rlh# dpkg --configure -a
> dpkg: warning: 'ldconfig' not found in PATH or not executable
> dpkg: warning: 'start-stop-daemon' not found in PATH or not executable
> dpkg: error: 2 expected programs not found in PATH or not executable
> Note: root's PATH should usually contain /usr/local/sbin, /usr/sbin and /sbin
> 
> Running dpkg again gives the same result.
> 
> Should I continue to run the system, or do I need to reinstall?

The fact that your working directory is a user's (yours?), and
…sbin directories are not in your $PATH suggests you might have
become root using "su" and not "su -" or "su --login". Try one
of these instead. (The change to su's semantics gets discussed
here fairly regularly.)

Cheers,
David.