Bug#371874: x11-common postinst error: trouble with /usr/include/X11
Package: x11-common
Version: 1:7.0.20
Severity: grave
X-Debbugs-CC: "Henk Boom" <lcpublic@gmail.com>
x11-common postinst error: trouble with /usr/include/X11
We get this problem on two different systems -- an etch AMD-64 (installed
as Debian-AMD64, but upgraded as Debian since a few weeks ago), and etch
running on a 32-bit Athlon (installed as sarge, subsequently dist-upgraded
to etch).
We are trying to upgrade our machines from xorg 6.9 to xorg 7.0, and have
been stymied by the installation behaviour of x11-common, specifically the
one that appears as /var/cache/apt/archives/x11-common_1%3a7.0.20_amd64.deb
on the AMD64, and /var/cache/apt/archives/x11-common_1%3a7.0.20_i386.deb
on the 32-bit system.
The post-install script complains that the symbolic link /usr/include/X11
does not exist.
On the AMD-64 we managed to get past this point, but we're not sure exactly
what we did that did the trick. We tried uninstalling x11-common in order
to install it again. Forcing uninstallation and installation did not *seem*
to work, but we are not familiar enough with the behavious of apt-get to know
this for sure. We succeeded on tha AMD-64 only after deleting about a
hundred packages that directly or indirectly depended on x11-common, then
uninstalling and reinstalling it.
On the 32-bit machine we are utterly at a standstill, since there are
far, far too many packages to delete by hand.
In case it's relevant, both machines use nvidia drivers built from the
Debian nveidia-kernel-source package.
On the 32-bit machine, we took inspiration from someone's advice on the
net, and tried creating the /usr/include/X11 directory ourselves, since
although x11-common complains about a missing symbolic link, it is apparently
supposed to end up with a directory. But in this case it complains that
/usr/include/X11 is not a symbolic link.
If we re-create the symbolic link as it appears on other systems still
using 6.9, it reports that the symbolic link does not exist, and when we
check afterwards, the symbolic link has disappeared.
-- hendrik@topoi.pooq.com
-- "Henk Boom" <lcpublic@gmail.com>
AMD-64:
hendrik@april:~$ uname -a
Linux april 2.6.12-1-amd64-generic #1 Wed Sep 28 02:05:15 CEST 2005 x86_64 GNU/Linux
hendrik@april:~$ dpkg -s libc6 | grep ^Version
Version: 2.3.6-7
Athlon 32:
hendrik@henk-linux:/home/henk$ uname -a
Linux henk-linux 2.6.15-1-686 #2 Mon Mar 6 15:27:08 UTC 2006 i686 GNU/Linux
hendrik@henk-linux:/home/henk$ dpkg -s libc6 | grep ^Version
Version: 2.3.6-7
hendrik@henk-linux:/home/henk$
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