I very much appreciate the replies I got from Goswin and Chris -- sorry for troubling the list with off-topic issues; I thought this was for general Debian mentoring and felt unusually badly in need of some generic high-level expertise.
Just for the record, my problems with the postinstall scripts appear to have nothing to do with any problems in Debian; this machine has a hardware problem that slowly, over the course of some hours, corrupts everything. What a relief, eh? Even if the suggestions I received didn't allow me to solve the problem at the software level (a lost cause anyway), they taught me several useful things about Debian. Cheers, Peter Quoting Goswin von Brederlow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Peter Nome <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > On a woody base install, I'm getting lots of post-installation script > errors, like this: > > > > # dpkg -i sed_3.02-8_i386.deb > > (Reading database ... 6623 files and directories currently installed.) > > Preparing to replace sed 3.02-8 (using sed_3.02-8_i386.deb) ... > > /var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.prerm: line 9: 653 Segmentation fault > install-info --quiet --remove sed > > dpkg: warning - old pre-removal script returned error exit status 139 > > dpkg - trying script from the new package instead ... > > dpkg: ... it looks like that went OK. > > Unpacking replacement sed ... > > Setting up sed (3.02-8) ... > > /var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.postinst: line 11: 662 Segmentation fault > install-info --quiet --section "General commands" "General commands" > /usr/share/info/sed.info > > dpkg: error processing sed (--install): > > subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 139 > > Errors were encountered while processing: > > sed > > Looks like your install-info is busted. > > > If I comment out the line starting "install-info" in > /var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.postinst I can complete the configuration with apt-get > --reinstall install sed (or sometimes dpkg --configure sed). However, I get > this on lots of packages. What's going on? > > > > Strace below. Please cc: me. I'd really appreciate suggestions and > insights; I'm stumped. > > > > Cheers, > > Peter > > > > > > > > stat64("/var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.postinst", {st_mode=S_IFREG|0755, > st_size=287, ...}) = 0 > > fork() = 624 > > rt_sigaction(SIGQUIT, {SIG_IGN}, {SIG_DFL}, 8) = 0 > > rt_sigaction(SIGINT, {SIG_IGN}, {SIG_DFL}, 8) = 0 > > waitpid(624, /var/lib/dpkg/info/sed.postinst: line 11: 625 Segmentation > fault install-info --quiet --section "General commands" "General > commands" /usr/share/info/sed.info > > [WIFEXITED(s) && WEXITSTATUS(s) == 139], 0) = 624 > > --- SIGCHLD (Child exited) --- > > write(2, "dpkg: error processing sed (--in"..., 108dpkg: error processing > sed (--install): > > subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 139 > > ) = 108 > > rt_sigaction(SIGQUIT, {SIG_DFL}, NULL, 8) = 0 > > rt_sigaction(SIGINT, {SIG_DFL}, NULL, 8) = 0 > > This strace doesn't help at all. > > You have to strace the install-info call and you should probably file > this as bug against install-info. > > MfG > Goswin > -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]