8.04 Upgrade Failure - tzdata (and many others)

[Derek Broughton]

Bill Moseley wrote:

> On Mon, May 05, 2008 at 01:35:46PM -0300, Derek Broughton wrote:
>> Bill Moseley wrote:
>> 
>> >  unable to make backup link of `./usr/share/zoneinfo/America/Atikokan'
>> 
>> Is Atikokan _still_ out of step with the rest of the world?  I remember
>> 40 years ago being told it was on "Railway time", but I don't imagine
>> it's much of a railway town, anymore.
> 
> Probably.  But, any idea how to get around that?  I suppose I need to
> find the install script and see why it's unable to make a backup.

My first attempt would be to change my timezone to something that would have
actually been tested, like America/New York, then you could change it back
after the install if that works.
 
> Anyone know how best to do this?  Where's the install script for the
> package and can I edit it on disk and have it run w/o it being
> extracted again from the .deb?

in /var/lib/dpkg/info there are numerous .pre* and .post* files.  This is
_probably_ the .preinst for tzdata, so I'd consider just deleting that.  If
it's the .prerm script, even better - then I'd definitely not worry about
it.

>> > Is it worth trying to fix or is it time for a clean install?
>> 
>> I'd want to (a) fix everything fsck can fix - there's no way you can
>> count on the system working if you're running off a bad filesystem; then
>> (b) run "aptitude -f install" to make sure that the install is really
>> complete (sounds like it probably isn't).
> 
> Only package not installed is tzdata with the error above.  aptitude
> -f install is not resolving that.
 
So where's the "many others" part of the subject?  If the only thing that's
a problem is tzdata, you don't have much of a problem.

I still think you _have_ to fix the fsck errors before you do anything - if
it's a failing drive, reinstalling onto it will just leave you in even
worse shape.
-- 
derek