Package: debhelper Version: 4.2.32 Followup-For: Bug #139020 I got around this problem with the patch below. Basically, it checks for a gzip-ed version of the file in the .so line.
-- System Information: Debian Release: 3.1 Architecture: i386 (i586) Kernel: Linux 2.6.11-mph Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968) Versions of packages debhelper depends on: ii binutils 2.15-6 The GNU assembler, linker and bina ii coreutils [fileutils] 5.2.1-2 The GNU core utilities ii debconf-utils 1.4.30.13 debconf utilities ii dpkg-dev 1.10.28 Package building tools for Debian ii file 4.12-1 Determines file type using "magic" ii fileutils 5.2.1-2 The GNU file management utilities ii html2text 1.3.2a-2 An advanced HTML to text converter ii perl 5.8.4-8 Larry Wall's Practical Extraction ii po-debconf 0.8.23 manage translated Debconf template -- no debconf information
--- /usr/bin/dh_installman 2004-02-09 04:35:04.000000000 +0000 +++ ./dh_installman 2005-07-31 17:40:02.000000000 +0100 @@ -201,6 +201,12 @@ else { $solink="../$solink"; } + if (! -f $solink && -f $solink.'.gz') { + $solink = $solink . '.gz'; + } + if (! -f $solink) { + error($_ . " refers to non-existant file " . $solink); + } push @sofiles,"$File::Find::dir/$_"; push @sodests,$solink;