Rob Weir wrote:
>
> After doing my regular apt-get update;apt-get -fuy dist-upgrade against
> testing, I've managed to completely munge up my perl installation. When apt
> gets to updating Debconf, I get the following error:
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> debconf: Perl may be unconfigured (Can't modify goto in lvalue subroutine
> return at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Base.pm line 24, near "}"
> Compilation failed in require at (eval 4) line 3.
> ...propagated at /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/base.pm line 18.
> BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Iterator.pm
> line 5.
> Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Question.pm line 7.
> BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Question.pm
> line 7.
> Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Config.pm line 5.
> BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Config.pm line
> 5.
> Compilation failed in require at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Log.pm line 8.
> Compilation failed in require at (eval 1) line 4.
> BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 1) line 4.
> ) -- aborting
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The two stupid things that I've done lately to my system was running CPAN and
> apt-getlocalepurge. CPAN tried to update a bunch of stuff (for some reason
> it that overwriting the perl modules in /usr/ was a good idea, rather than
> writing to /usr/local/ like the perl packages normally do), while
> apt-localepurge, well, purged a bunch of locale files which means that many
> packages refuse to install now. I'm involved in a rather large perl project,
> so I need to fix this, soon. Is it time to grab my potato CD's and reinstall
> everything, or can this be fixed reasonably easily?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
I ran into the same problem and had to do a complete reinstall. It was
faster than screwing around with fixing things. I also upgraded to
testing then sid immediately upon finishing the base installation. So
far the new perl seems to have cured all of the wierd error messages.
Send mail seems to be crapped up but it will clear up soon, I think. I
will reinstall most of my /non-debian stuff from my backups and let
things set for awhile. BTW if you do a force purge of debconf-tiny
befour installing debconf you will avoid a lot of problems. All this is
on my tst/toy system. I NEVER use anything except stable on my
production boxes.
Best wishes!
John