You're quasi running Sid, this explains that you could run into trouble. Some software does expect:
spinymouse@qrc:~$ df -hl | grep run tmpfs 741M 944K 740M 1% /run none 5.0M 0 5.0M 0% /run/lock none 1.9G 0 1.9G 0% /run/shm none 100M 16K 100M 1% /run/user But your customized Sid doesn't provide it. IMO you should switch to Debian testing or to Mint Ubuntu version, if you prefer Mint. I guess base-files is installed? Can't you copy /var to / and reinstall base-files? -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20121116065943.74e384f6@qrc