I'm on squeeze and it had the same symptoms. The patch didn't work for me either.
The fix proposed of replacing sb-impl with sb-unix solved the issue. Patch attached. Thank you, --- appa
--- /usr/share/common-lisp/source/common-lisp-controller/post-sysdef-install.lisp.orig 2009-10-21 14:42:00.000000000 -0400 +++ /usr/share/common-lisp/source/common-lisp-controller/post-sysdef-install.lisp 2009-10-21 14:40:59.000000000 -0400 @@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ #+sbcl (defun get-owner-and-mode (directory) (when (eq :directory - (sb-impl::native-file-kind (namestring directory))) + (sb-unix::unix-file-kind (namestring directory))) ;; check who owns it (multiple-value-bind (res dev ino mode nlink uid gid rdev size atime mtime) (sb-unix:unix-stat (namestring directory))