Subject: catch 22?

From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 06 Aug 1996 22:33:12 -0400 (EDT)

Oh Debian L'ers,

I've managed to get myself in a catch-22 kind of dilemma.  In an effort
to get a working 2.0.0 kernel with the proper options to support IP
masquerading, somehow or other both my kernel-image and kernel-source
packages have gotten to a state where I'm stuck fast!  I cannot
successfully build a kernel at this point, and I can't remove or reinstall 
either of the packages.  Attempting to reinstall results in errors 
during the prerem or postrem scripts for both the source and image
package.  Attempting to remove, errors with a recommendation to reinstall
(which fails of course!--hence the dilemma) before attempting to remove!
I am stuck in that proverbial hard place.............

Is there some way to force dpkg to reinstall (or remove) in spite of the
error it encounters attempting to remove the older package first?  Or is
there some reasonable way to fake it out by creating the .deb files in
some magic place where the remove will work, for example, or even by 
copying them from the CD to an appropriate place (I do have the I-Connect
CD cut on 6_16)?

I haven't been successful attempting to use dpkg -i either, but that could
be me not getting the syntax correct perhaps.  Any suggestions would be
appreciated.  Thanks.

Stuck fast....

Paul

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 1996 19:57:17 -0400 (EDT)

>
>manually created the symlink

Jim, 

THANKS!  I'll give that a try.....best suggestion I've heard today

:-)
Paul
>- Jim

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From: Christian Hudon <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 21:31:25 -0700 (PDT)

On 7 Aug 1996, Jim Pick wrote:

> I had the same problem with a virgin Debian 1.1 installation.  I
> investigated and found that the kernel-image/kernel-source postinst 
> and prerm scripts reference "#! /bin/perl".
> 
> However, on my virgin Debian 1.1 installation, there was no
> symlink from /bin/perl to /usr/bin/perl!  I manually created the
> symlink and that fixed the problem.
> 
> I've been meaning to report this as a bug - but I haven't figured out
> how to do that yet...

You don't need to report it, it's a known bug. It's been fixed in Debian 
1.1.something.

  Christian

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From: Graham Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 14:44:46 +1000 (EST)

Jim Pick wrote on 08 Aug 1996 04:44:21 +1000:

    wb2oyc> <...> In an effort to get a working 2.0.0 kernel with the
    wb2oyc> proper options <...> results in errors during the prerem
    wb2oyc> or postrem scripts for both the source and image package.

    Jim> I had the same problem with a virgin Debian 1.1 installation.
    Jim> I investigated and found that the kernel-image/kernel-source
    Jim> postinst and prerm scripts reference "#! /bin/perl".
    Jim> However, on my virgin Debian 1.1 installation, there was no
    Jim> symlink from /bin/perl to /usr/bin/perl!  I manually created
    Jim> the symlink and that fixed the problem.

This is Bug#3951 I think.  I had the same problem.

Cheers,
Graham

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 07 Aug 1996 19:42:25 -0400 (EDT)

On 14:19:59 Guy Maor wrote:
>>On Tue, 6 Aug 1996 [email-masked] wrote:
>
>> error it encounters attempting to remove the older package first?
>
>Type `dpkg --force-help' for instructions on forcing options.  I think
>you want --force-remove-reinstreq.  Be forewarned that you can
>seriously damage your installation with some of these options.
>
>Guy
Thanks for the try Guy, but no help there.  Been there, done that.  The
remove (or forced install) doesn't work either, for the same reason.
The prerem and/or the postrem script fails.  Actually, I thought the force
option would be the answer, but I haven't been successful with it yet.

Paul

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From: Guy Maor <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 7 Aug 1996 10:19:59 -0500 (CDT)

Guy

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From: Guy Maor <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 8 Aug 1996 09:58:48 -0500 (CDT)

> option would be the answer, but I haven't been successful with it yet.

You'll have to examine the prerm or postrm in question to see why it
fails.  You'll then have to correct the problem so you can remove the
package.  Be sure and file a bug report explaining the problem.

Guy

---

From: [email-masked] (Jim Pick)
Date: 7 Aug 1996 18:44:21 GMT

- Jim

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 08 Aug 1996 22:09:11 -0400 (EDT)

Thanks to all the Debian L'ers for the suggestions on how to
deal with this problem, especially Dwarf, Guy, Jim and Heiko.
I did manage to correctly get a fresh source and image installed
by using Heiko's suggestion (or a very close version of it)!  I 
changed the status file to read " purge ok not-installed" and 
that did fake out dpkg.  Thanks guys!  Appreciate all the help.

But, now, another has shown up!  You guys are gonna get tired
of me stumbling around.  Seems if I didn't have bad luck, I'd have
none at all.  My CD is on a SB16 card.  I've told the new kernel
NOT to load modules (N to kerneld) and somehow, what is now
happening is SB driver loads during boot, and then later in the
boot process I see loading modules, and you guessed it, it loads
sbpcd as a module also!  Only the module doesn't see the line
passed to the kernel specifying the parameters for sbpcd, so it
polls for every darn possible address and clone drive!  Now my
systems takes about ten minutes to boot!   Almost as long as my
Vax's at work! :-)

Anyone tell me what question I answered wrong to cause this?

Paul

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From: "Susan G. Kleinmann" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 09 Aug 1996 10:47:41 -0400

Hi Paul --
You said:
> My CD is on a SB16 card.  I've told the new kernel
> sbpcd as a module also!  
The modules listed in /etc/modules will be loaded during boot time 
whether or not kerneld has been enabled.

> Only the module doesn't see the line
> systems takes about ten minutes to boot!   
>From the documentation in /usr/doc/modules, I would infer you 
have to put a line like
    sbpcd irq=NNN io=NNN
into /etc/conf.modules.  Maybe you have to give sbpcd a number like
sbpcd1; I don't know.  I'm also not sure of which particular arguments
are accepted by this module, but I'd guess they can be deduced from 
the kernel sources.

HTH?
Susan Kleinmann