[Techtalk] Urgent Help needed (long post)

[Figaro]

hello,
Well that is a show stopper!!!
I pinned libc6 to the currently inst. and running version, edited the
/var/lib/dpkg/info/libc6.preinst to add the -x flag to "set -e" and to
comment out the postgresql and xscreensaver stuff. Issued #updatedb, and
rebooted to single user where upon I had to mount each partition and
hard drive, then aptitude clean, aptitude reinstall coreutils. This
generated a hopeful list of things it wanted to do, but exited stating
unable to locate package coreutils, same for policycoreutils.
Okay, then; what is the output from #locate coreutils |less
> /etc/init.d/policycoreutils
> /etc/rc0.d/K20policycoreutils
> /etc/rc1.d/K20policycoreutils
> /etc/rc2.d/S20policycoreutils
> /etc/rc3.d/S20policycoreutils
> /etc/rc4.d/S20policycoreutils
> /etc/rc5.d/S20policycoreutils
> /etc/rc6.d/K20policycoreutils
> /usr/share/doc/coreutils
> /usr/share/doc/coreutils/AUTHORS
> /usr/share/doc/coreutils/buildinfo.gz
> 
-----------/Truncated /--------------------

> /var/cache/apt/archives/coreutils_7.1-2_i386.deb
> /var/cache/apt/archives/policycoreutils_2.0.55-1_i386.deb
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/coreutils.list
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/coreutils.md5sums
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/coreutils.postinst
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/coreutils.prerm
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/policycoreutils.conffiles
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/policycoreutils.list
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/policycoreutils.md5sums
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/policycoreutils.postinst
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/policycoreutils.postrm
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/policycoreutils.preinst
> /var/lib/dpkg/info/policycoreutils.prerm
Then one did # dpkg-reconfigure coreutils
Same again for policycoreutils, followed by #updatedb
Again the oft used: #aptitude -f install <>

PARTIAL output-----------------------
> The following packages will be upgraded:
>   g++-4.3 gcc-4.3 gcc-4.3-multilib gfortran-4.3 gfortran-4.3-multilib lib64gfortran3 libc6 
>   libgfortran3 libstdc++6 libstdc++6-4.3-dev policycoreutils 
> The following partially installed packages will be configured:
>   deborphan gconf2 gconf2-common gthumb gthumb-data lib64gcc1 lib64gomp1 libc6-amd64 libc6-dev 
>   libc6-dev-amd64 libgconf2-4 libgconf2-dev libgnome2-vfs-perl swfdec-gnome 
> 11 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 442 not upgraded.
> Need to get 0B/20.4MB of archives. After unpacking 1028kB will be used.
> Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?] y
> Preconfiguring packages ...
> (Reading database ... 737546 files and directories currently installed.)
> Preparing to replace libc6 2.7-18 (using .../archives/libc6_2.9-4_i386.deb) ...
> Checking for services that may need to be restarted...
> Checking init scripts...
> WARNING: init script for postgresql not found.
> WARNING: init script for xscreensaver not found.
> touch: setting times of `/etc/ld.so.nohwcap': Invalid argument
> dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.9-4_i386.deb (--unpack):
>  subprocess pre-installation script returned error exit status 1
> + export LC_ALL=C
> + LC_ALL=C
> + type=abort-upgrade
> + preversion=2.9-4
> + '[' abort-upgrade = configure ']'
> ++ uname -s
> + '[' Linux = Linux ']'
> ++ dpkg -s sysvinit
> ++ grep '^Version:'
> ++ sed -e 's/^Version: *//'
> + sysvinitver=2.86.ds1-61
> + case "`uname -m`" in
> ++ uname -m
> + badsysvinitver='2.[0-6]*|2.7[0-3]*'
> + case "$sysvinitver" in
> ++ stat -c %d/%i /
> ++ stat -Lc %d/%i /proc/1/root
> + '[' 2050/2 = 2050/2 ']'
> + init u
> + sleep 1
> + '[' abort-upgrade = configure ']'
> + exit 0
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>  /var/cache/apt/archives/libc6_2.9-4_i386.deb
------------------------------------------

So, one may see the extra debug messages from the -x flag, but it still
sees the postgresql and xscreensaver junk.
Thank you,
matthew
Wim De Smet wrote:
> Heya,
> 
> On Thu, Mar 5, 2009 at 6:00 PM, Akkana Peck <akkana at shallowsky.com> wrote:
>> Figaro writes:
>>> The whole show is stopped by the preinst script which complains about
>>> missing init script for postgresql and xscreensaver. There is an
>>> /etc/init.d/postgresql-8.3 which until recent lockup automatically
>>> started postgresql-8.3 (indeed still does if manually issued). No
>>> xscreensaver init script (never has been one on this sys).
>>> Than we get to the "touch: setting times of `/etc/ld.so.nohwcap':
>>> Invalid argument" , which I think really has no serious meaning.
>> When you have apt/dpkg failing because of a pre/postinst script,
>> sometimes the easiest thing to do is just modify the script.
>> It's a lot easier than trying to persuade dpkg to ignore it or
>> proceed past the errors.
>>
>> I've gotten stuck like that a few times, where there was no way to
>> satisty a script because of a circular dependency or some issue
>> peculiar to my system. But since they're just shell scripts, you can
>> go in and edit them, comment out the lines that are causing problems
>> or put in an "exit 0" at the top of the script before it gets to the
>> problematic part.
> 
> I was going to suggest that as well but I couldn't remember where dpkg
> unpacks the files..?
> 
> regards,
> Wim
> _______________________________________________
> Techtalk mailing list
> Techtalk at linuxchix.org
> http://mailman.linuxchix.org/mailman/listinfo/techtalk
>