Marc Lehmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Package: tetex-bin > Version: 3.0-5 > Severity: normal > > > During update, I get: > > update-fmtutil has updated '/var/lib/texmf/web2c/fmtutil.cnf'. If you want > to enable > the new formats, you should run fmtutil (with option --all > or --missing) > Running fmtutil-sys. This may take some time. ... > aleph: invalid option -- i > usage: rsh [-nd] [-l login] host [command] > Error: `aleph -ini -jobname=aleph -progname=aleph *aleph.ini' failed > Error: `tex -ini -jobname=xmltex -progname=xmltex &latex xmltex.ini' > failed > > Turned out I had a link form rsh to aleph in my path, so it tried to call > my own aleph program. > > The obvious fix would be to either set the PATH or specify the full path > of the program.
Which would kind of break the sense of a PATH variable: You would no longer be able to use a customized aleph by providing the binary somewhere earlier in your path. You don't expect your XWindow system to work if you have a "xinit" program in your path that does something completely different? FWIW, the policy explicitly recommends _not_ to prepend a specific path before the names of the binaries: ,---- | 6.1. Introduction to package maintainer scripts | ----------------------------------------------- | [...] | | Programs called from maintainer scripts should not normally have a | path prepended to them. Before installation is started, the package | management system checks to see if the programs `ldconfig', | `start-stop-daemon', `install-info', and `update-rc.d' can be found | via the `PATH' environment variable. Those programs, and any other | program that one would expect to be on the `PATH', should thus be | invoked without an absolute pathname. Maintainer scripts should also | not reset the `PATH', though they might choose to modify it by | prepending or appending package-specific directories. These | considerations really apply to all shell scripts. `---- In my opinion, this is not a bug. Regards, Frank -- Frank Küster Inst. f. Biochemie der Univ. Zürich Debian Developer
