Package: debconf Version: 1.4.20.11
Other software: silurian:~# uname -a Linux silurian 2.6.8 #10 Thu Mar 24 01:47:35 EST 2005 i486 GNU/Linux silurian:~# dpkg -s perl | grep ^Version: Version: 5.8.4-8
All software on the system is upgraded to the latest version of Debian Sarge, as of yesterday, Mar. 27, 2005.
On this system, the command "apt-get install xserver-xfree86," and reconfigure attempts, failed repeatedly and ultimately required manual intervention to fix.
I have looked over the bug reports and the closest report of a similar problem seems to be from over a year ago, and occured while installing a different package. (see #183361)
My system is a 486VLB with a mach-32 card. When I encounted the problem I was trying to upgrade from xserver-xfree86-v3, (and xserver-svga) to xserver-xfree86. Before installing xserver-xfree86-v3/ xserver-svga I had Xfree86 4.3 installed, and had downgraded to the earlier version of X to run an old graphics card. It's a known fact that downgrading is generally unsupported and risky in Debian. It may have been a factor in the appearance of this problem.
At first I tried to install the new xserver "alongside" the old one, and I got the "unitialized value" perl errors, no XF86Config-4, and no relinking of /etc/X11/X. Then I tried removing the old X, reinstalling the new X, then purging the new X, then reinstalling and reconfiguring, and then purging both old and new X, then reinstalling and configuring the new X, after which an XF86Config-4 file finally appeared, but X was still misconfigured and still did not work.
The following output lines came near the end of this process, the error messages are typical of what I had been seeing all along. This was the configuration failure that warned that an XF86Config-4 file had not been made. The previous failures were silent apart from the ambiguous perl warning messages.
Had I not known what to look for or had I not noticed the perl warnings, I would have been clueless about the failures. All I would have known is that X no longer worked.
silurian:~# dpkg -P xserver-svga (Reading database ... 41787 files and directories currently installed.) Removing xserver-svga ... Purging configuration files for xserver-svga ... silurian:~# apt-get install xserver-xfree86 Reading Package Lists... Done Building Dependency Tree... Done Suggested packages: discover mdetect read-edid libglide2 The following NEW packages will be installed: xserver-xfree86 0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded. Need to get 0B/5711kB of archives. After unpacking 15.9MB of additional disk space will be used. Preconfiguring packages ... Selecting previously deselected package xserver-xfree86. (Reading database ... 41787 files and directories currently installed.) Unpacking xserver-xfree86 (from .../xserver-xfree86_4.3.0.dfsg.1-10_i386.deb) ... Use of uninitialized value in join or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Stack.pm line 83, <GEN1line 13. Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Format/822.pm line 72. Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Format/822.pm line 73. Setting up xserver-xfree86 (4.3.0.dfsg.1-10) ... Use of uninitialized value in join or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/Stack.pm line 83, <GEN1line 13. dexconf: error: cannot generate configuration file; shared/default-x-server not set. Aborting. Reconfigure the X server with "dpkg-reconfigure" to correct this problem. Use of uninitialized value in substitution (s///) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Format/822.pm line 72, <GEN6line 1. Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Format/822.pm line 73, <GEN6line 1.
silurian:~# ....
At this point I performed the "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86" as instructed, which produced an /etc/X11/XFConfig-4 file, but X still did not work. Then I noticed that /etc/X11/X still pointed to /usr/X11R6/bin/XF86_SVGA. I changed it to point to /usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86 and everything seems to work normally now, except that the screen goes blank a short time after starting up and I have to restart X to recover. I'm still troubleshooting this. I suspect that it has something to do with lack of a screensaver, or with APM. It's possibly due to some X misconfiguration related to this bug and my need to manually recover.
-Marty
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