Trouble with apt

[Mario Vukelic]

On Thu, 2007-11-01 at 11:37 -0800, Damien Hull wrote:
> I think something broke when I tried installing a package. 

Or it was already broken before.

> I can install 
> software but I get an error message every time. The following info was 
> taken after I installed xchat-gnome.
> 
> 
>     Reading package lists... Done
>     Building dependency tree      
>     Reading state information... Done
>     The following extra packages will be installed:
>       xchat-gnome-common
>     The following NEW packages will be installed:
>       xchat-gnome xchat-gnome-common
>     0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
>     1 not fully installed or removed.
>     Need to get 589kB of archives.
>     After unpacking 5190kB of additional disk space will be used.
>     Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y
>     Get:1 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main xchat-gnome-common
>     1:0.18-0ubuntu3 [268kB]
>     Get:2 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com gutsy/main xchat-gnome
>     1:0.18-0ubuntu3 [321kB]
>     Fetched 589kB in 5s (104kB/s)             
>     Selecting previously deselected package xchat-gnome-common.
>     (Reading database ... 98893 files and directories currently installed.)
>     Unpacking xchat-gnome-common (from
>     .../xchat-gnome-common_1%3a0.18-0ubuntu3_all.deb) ...
>     Selecting previously deselected package xchat-gnome.
>     Unpacking xchat-gnome (from
>     .../xchat-gnome_1%3a0.18-0ubuntu3_i386.deb) ...

All fine until here.

>     Setting up runit (1.6.0-1) ...

This is weird. Where does runit suddenly come from? It did not show up
when apt-get (or aptitude?) announced which packages it would install.
runit comes from the universe repo and while I am not familiar with it,
the package description shows that it is a special init system.
Installing it is (a) not required, and (b) it is certainly not simple to
install and will require quite substantial changes to Ubuntu, at least
in the init (boot) system

>     grep: /etc/inittab: No such file or directory
>     grep: /etc/inittab: No such file or directory

Yeah, because Ubuntu uses Upstart as the init system, which does not
need an /etc/inittab.

>     Adding SV inittab entry...
>     cp: cannot stat `/etc/inittab': No such file or directory
>     dpkg: error processing runit (--configure):
>      subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
>     Setting up xchat-gnome-common (1:0.18-0ubuntu3) ...
> 
>     Setting up xchat-gnome (1:0.18-0ubuntu3) ...
> 
>     Errors were encountered while processing:
>      runit
>     E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

It quite clearly seems to say that the problem is with runit. I'd try
uninstalling it (unless you installed it on purpose and would not be
able to boot without it)