On Thu, Sep 04, 2008 at 03:25:44 +0000, John O'Hagan wrote: > Florian Kulzer wrote: > >On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 10:35:39 +0000, Tzafrir Cohen wrote: > >> On Thu, Aug 28, 2008 at 03:54:23AM +0000, John O'Hagan wrote: > > >> Hi, > > >> > >> > I'm running lenny. > >> > > >> > The power failed on my laptop during a recent upgrade about a week > >> > ago. Don't know if this is why, but attempts to upgrade or install any > >> > new packages since then fail because aptitude (or rather dpkg) chokes > >> > on repeated attempts to configure libpam0g:
[...] > >> > # dpkg --configure libpam0g > >> > Setting up libpam0g (1.0.1-3) ... > >> > debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Kde > >> > debconf: (--- No method to call for :) > >> > debconf: falling back to frontend: Dialog [...] > >> > --- No method to call for : > > >> QApplication::new('Qt::Applic...', ARRAY(0x993c1c8)) > > > >at /usr/lib/perl5/Qt.pm line 464. > > > > > >This is debconf? > > >I think so; it looks like this bug: Clarification: This is a bug of libqt-perl and not of debconf. The postinst of libpam0g is a bash script, so I guess debconf's attempt to open the KDE frontend must be what gets libqt-perl involved. > >http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=481642 > > > >I would run > > > >dpkg-reconfigure --frontend=dialog debconf > > > >and set the default user interface to "Dialog", at least until this bug > >is fixed. > > > > Thanks for the assistance. > > As usual, Florian is correct: it was not enough to merely force a different > debconf frontend, but setting the default to dialog did the trick. Actually I had expected that forcing the frontend via environmental variables would be enough; I just thought that changing the default for the time being would be more convenient. > I'm still a little mystified as I have been getting those two error messages > for some time without consequence; is it something about libpam0g, or the > interruption to the original upgrade that precipitated the issue? The first part - KDE frontend not available, falling back to Dialog - should indeed be harmless. The QApplication::new error of Qt.pm is much more serious; see the comments in the bug report. Have you been getting this error for a longer time already? Interrupted upgrades can certainly cause all sorts of problems, for example due to an incomplete transition to a different perl version. I cannot offer any more meaningful speculation about your case; as a matter of fact, I don't understand how libqt-perl can pop up at that moment and bring down the entire post-installation script. -- Regards, | http://users.icfo.es/Florian.Kulzer Florian | -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]