.deb install fails on Debian 7 amd64 with XDG directory issue

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From jplgp...@gmail.com on May 29, 2013 02:06:11

Installing l5rcm-3-8-0_all.deb on a Debian 7 amd64 system fails with the error

"xdg-desktop-menu: No writable system menu directory found."

(and leaves the package system in a very unhappy state which AFAICT can only be fixed by directly editing /var/lib/dpkg/status to remove the l5rcm entry, which could have nasty consequences for some users.

I suspect the reason for this is that I'm running a system which only has WindowMaker installed - no GNOME or anything else that would pull in freedesktop.org menus. I was eventually able to do a workaround by installing packages gnome-menus and libgnome-menu2, on the principle that they seemed to create some directories related to XDG desktop menus, but would rather not have. So it seems like a missing dependency but I have no idea what the minimal dependency might be.

Original issue: http://code.google.com/p/l5rcm/issues/detail?id=182

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From oppifjel...@gmail.com on May 29, 2013 23:03:25

can you try installing 3.8.1 ? It has a lot of fixes in the debian packaging; and I'm quite sure I've removed the xdg menu files.

Status: Accepted
Owner: oppifjel...@gmail.com

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From jplgp...@gmail.com on May 29, 2013 23:41:08

Thanks! There is improvement, but it's still getting errors. Details:

I purged l5rcm 3.8.0 and the packages it required and tried installing 3.8.1-2. Initially it failed because packages     python-pyside.qtcore python-pyside.qtnetwork python-pyside.qtgui were not present. I installed these and tried again - perhaps they should be package required dependencies. This time I got:

dpkg -i l5rcm_3.8.1-2_all.deb

Selecting previously unselected package l5rcm. (Reading database ... 167561 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking l5rcm (from l5rcm_3.8.1-2_all.deb) ... Setting up l5rcm (3.8.1-2) ... xdg-desktop-menu: No writable system menu directory found. dpkg: error processing l5rcm (--install):  subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 3 Processing triggers for man-db ... Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils ... Errors were encountered while processing:  l5rcm

However, this time I was able to simply remove the package with

apt-get purge l5rcm

without messing with /var/lib/dpkg/status. Then doing

apt-get install gnome-menus

dpkg -i l5rcm_3.8.1-2_all.deb

worked. So installation still isn't working quite right WRT the dependencies and menus, but unlike 3.8.0, the dpkg database doesn't appear to get messed up by the failed partial install, which is in itself a big improvement :-)

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From oppifjel...@gmail.com on May 30, 2013 00:40:00

This is strange because my debian control files has those dependencies listed:

Depends: python, python-pyside.qtcore, python-pyside.qtnetwork, python-pyside.qtgui, pdftk

About xdg-desktop-menu the issue I'm working on a solution

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From oppifjel...@gmail.com on May 30, 2013 00:50:39

I just found out that dpkg -i doesn't install package dependencies. You should use gdebi instead.

➜  linux sudo gdebi ./l5rcm_3.8.1-3_all.deb Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done Building data structures... Done Building data structures... Done Richiede l'installazione dei seguenti pacchetti: python-pyside.qtcore python-pyside.qtgui python-pyside.qtnetwork

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From oppifjel...@gmail.com on May 30, 2013 00:58:58

https://l5rcm.googlecode.com/files/l5rcm_3.8.1-3_all.deb this one should resolve the xdg-desktop-menu issue ( hopefully ).

for the dependencies use gdebi or install them manually.

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From jplgp...@gmail.com on May 30, 2013 01:08:28

Using gdebi with 3.8.1-3 does install the python- packages, but I'm still getting just the same xdg-desktop-menu install error. To be clear on how I'm testing it starting from a hopefully clean base:

aptitude purge l5rcm

aptitude purge python-pyside.qtcore python-pyside.qtgui python-pyside.qtnetwork gnome-menus

gdebi l5rcm_3.8.1-3_all.deb

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From oppifjel...@gmail.com on May 30, 2013 02:09:13

mh so you DO have xdg-utils installed but they fails?

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From jplgp...@gmail.com on May 30, 2013 03:30:21

Yes, xdg-utils is installed. But AFAICT that package just installs binaries and documentation, not menu directories.

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From oppifjel...@gmail.com on May 30, 2013 03:32:10

I've lurked around to see how other projects resolve this situation and I've found a simple method.

I'll release soon a new .deb but you have to wait until 3.8.2, I want to include a fix or two.

:)

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From oppifjel...@gmail.com on June 06, 2013 23:49:44

This hopefully should be solved with the 3.8.2 package.

Status: Started

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From oppifjel...@gmail.com on June 10, 2013 01:29:34

(No comment was entered for this change.)

Status: Fixed

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From jplgp...@gmail.com on June 10, 2013 01:44:37

Confirmed, starting from a clean system installs properly and pulls in needed dependencies. Thank you!