Hi, thanks firstly to all who answered so far. Unfortunately nobody could suggest a "clean" solution without rebooting and eventually reinstalling.
So, if somebody has some ideas what I could try before rebooting and instead of reinstalling the whole system please jump in with your suggestions! It would be already most helpful, if somebody could help me in isolating the problem. The error message I receive is invariably: foo: relocation error: /lib/libnss_compat.so.2: symbol rectory, version GLIBC_2.0 not defined in file libc.so.6 with link time reference This would lead me to believe that either libnss_compat.so.2 or libc.so.6 is the culprit. But if I do then for instance for ps (one of the many programs which don't run any more): ldd /bin/ps I get: libproc.so.2.0.7 => /lib/libproc.so.2.0.7 (0x40023000) libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x40030000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000) or for /usr/bin/whoami libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x40023000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000) So libnss_compat.so.2 does not seem to be involved. On the other hand, if I try ldd /bin/echo (echo still runs) I get too: libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x40023000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000) So I would think that libc.so.6 is ok. Is this reasoning correct? Is there a better way to find the culprit? Would it be helpful from outside of the running debian system to replace libc.so.6 (that is libc-2.2.4.so) and libnss_compat.so.2 (that is libnss_compat-2.2.4.so)? Andreas Goesele (PS: I can't answer from my mailreader and I can't include custom headers in netscape: Sorry for the lack of the reference header!) -- Andreas Gösele Inst. f. Gesellschaftspolitik Kaulbachstr. 31a D-80539 München Tel. (49)89/2386-2358 Fax (49)89/2386-2352 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]