Apt giving error --fix-broken not working

[Keith]

On 4/25/24 8:11 PM, Jerry Geis wrote:
> 
> 
> On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 7:35 PM Colin Watson <cjwatson at ubuntu.com 
> <mailto:cjwatson at ubuntu.com>> wrote:
> 
>     On Thu, Apr 25, 2024 at 03:41:54PM -0400, Jerry Geis wrote:
>      > something is messed up on apt.  fix broken does not fix anything -
>      > how do I fix it.
> 
>     --fix-broken isn't a magic spell.  It fixes a particular kind of
>     problem, not anything that might possibly be broken on the system in any
>     way.  It won't help here.
> 
>      > debconf: Perl may be unconfigured (Can't locate Cwd.pm in @INC
>     (you may
>      > need to install the Cwd module) (@INC contains: /etc/perl
>      > /usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.36.0
>     /usr/local/share/perl/5.36.0
>      > /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl5/5.36 /usr/share/perl5
>      > /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl-base
>     /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.36
>      > /usr/share/perl/5.36 /usr/local/lib/site_perl) at
>      > /usr/share/perl/5.36/File/Path.pm line 6.
>      > BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at
>     /usr/share/perl/5.36/File/Path.pm line
>      > 6.
>      > Compilation failed in require at (eval 1) line 3.
>      > BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 1) line 3.
>      > ) -- aborting
> 
>     You have done something awful to your system somehow.  I'm not sure
>     exactly what.  It will be difficult to do anything at all until this
>     sort of thing is fixed; just hitting it with normal apt commands is not
>     likely to help.
> 
>     Based on what you have so far, I'd suggest using "sudo dpkg-preconfigure
>     --help" as a barometer for how broken your system is.  Your goal is to
>     get it to produce a normal help message and not an error message spew
>     like the above.
> 
>     What does "dpkg -l perl\*" say?
> 
>     Can you tell us anything about the events that led up to this?
> 
>     -- 
>     Colin Watson (he/him)                             
>     [cjwatson at ubuntu.com <mailto:cjwatson at ubuntu.com>]
> 
>     -- 
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> 
> 
> dpkg -l perl\*
> Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
> | 
> Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
> |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
> ||/ Name              Version           Architecture Description
> +++-=================-=================-============-=====================================================
> ii  perl              5.36.0-9ubuntu1.1 amd64        Larry Wall's 
> Practical Extraction and Report Language
> ii  perl-base         5.36.0-9ubuntu1.1 amd64        minimal Perl system
> un  perl-doc          <none>            <none>       (no description 
> available)
> un  perl-modules      <none>            <none>       (no description 
> available)
> un  perl-modules-5.22 <none>            <none>       (no description 
> available)
> un  perl-modules-5.24 <none>            <none>       (no description 
> available)
> un  perl-modules-5.26 <none>            <none>       (no description 
> available)
> ii  perl-modules-5.36 5.36.0-9ubuntu1.1 all          Core Perl modules
> un  perlapi-5.36.0    <none>            <none>       (no description 
> available)
> un  perlsgml          <none>            <none>       (no description 
> available)
> 
> 
> This is a 23.10 system
> 

You might try

$ sudo apt install --reinstall perl-base

and cross your fingers.

-- 
Keith