Bug#567061: perl-doc: No /usr/bin/perldoc after Etch->Lenny Upgrade

[Niko Tyni]

tag 567061 unreproducible
thanks

Patrik: I got the dpkg+apt logs out of band, thanks. Cc'ing the BTS
again. Unfortunately the executive summary is as above.

On Mon, Feb 01, 2010 at 09:13:10AM +0200, Niko Tyni wrote:

> > dpkg: error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/
> > perl_5.10.0-19lenny2_i386.deb (--unpack):
> >  trying to overwrite `/usr/bin/ptardiff', which is also in package
> > libarchive-tar-perl
> > dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)
> 
> I believe you had libarchive-tar-perl version 1.38-3~etch1 installed,
> can you confirm?

Confirmed by the logs.

> That version was never released from proposed-updates to etch proper
> because of this very issue. See #531556.

In the private mail, you expressed a wish for this information to be
included in the release notes. AFAIK the proposed-updates repository is
not considered part of a release - I think of it more like the 'testing'
repository, and it never occurred to me that the release notes should
cover issues fixed for the actual release.

In hindsight, I agree a mention about this would have been a good thing.
It's something of a special case because we couldn't provide a fixed
libarchive-tar-perl package, and the only option was to remove the
buggy one.

Given that Etch support is ending in two weeks, I think it's too late
to try and get such a mention rushed through to the upgrade notes now.
(I have no idea about their update policy though.)

> > I removed libarchive-tar-perl and it's dependencies (mainly
> > spamassassin) so I could continue the dist-upgrade and (re)installed
> > spamassassin afterwards. Maybe here is the problem? Interrupted
> > package installation? Or because of the install order (first
> > perldoc, then perl)?
> 
> I still can't reproduce the problem, even with the problematic
> libarchive-tar-perl installed. If you don't feel the logs from the upgrade
> are too private, could you please send them to me in full (dpkg, aptitude,
> apt) for further digging?

I've glared at the logs and tried various ways of reproducing this with
different dpkg+perl-base+perl combinations without success. I'm tagging
this as unreproducible as I have no further ideas to try. Interrupted
installation as such doesn't cause this; there are specific rules about
what dpkg does in such a situation and it all works for me.

I'll keep the bug open for a while and see if we get any other reports,
but if we don't I suppose we'll just have to close it at some point.

Sorry it didn't work for you.
-- 
Niko Tyni   ntyni at debian.org