It seems this dumbness has been recognised since 2005 according to this bug report, but not taken seriously:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=162416 Apparently "gdbm-1.9.1 (already in Rawhide) provides different magic values for 32 and 64 bits, so we can discover what system the file was created on if we use this new version", though I see that Ubuntu 12.04 is still using an older version: $ apt-cache policy libgdbm3 libgdbm3: Installed: 1.8.3-10 Candidate: 1.8.3-10 Version table: *** 1.8.3-10 0 500 http://gb.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main i386 Packages 100 /var/lib/dpkg/status ** Bug watch added: Red Hat Bugzilla #162416 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=162416 -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1001189 Title: 'man' command fails with lseek error To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/man-db/+bug/1001189/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
