On Thu, Jun 10, 2004, Matthew Palmer wrote:
> I'd hope not. Lock files should *never* be in /usr, because it should be
> mountable read-only.
It doesn't appear to be that file alone -- creating it manually allows
aptitude to run. So my statement in the last mail was false.
This is all I know about the situation:
1. whatever lock file aptitude was talking about was not a file named
"lock" in /var, or any file named "*lock*" for that matter.
Proof: I deleted all those files OVER AND OVER again, reran aptitude
and got the same error. This persisted after reboot, which should
absolutely put an end to the "you were running a second apt process,
derrrr!" responses that other users seem to have attracted across the
net when asking about this error message.
2. Purging tasksel from the system fixed whatever the problem was
Proof: aptitude did not complain about a lock file and completed
successfully after I did this.
I appreciate that I'm very far away from any kind of diagnostic, and
since I've fixed the problem I can no longer even demonstrate it and
continue to test. This isn't the world's best bugfixing technique, but
it did work.
For interest's sake, here's all the "open" system calls made by aptitude
after I pressed 'g' (for dist-upgrade) -- I wasn't logging from the
beginning of the process...:
open("/var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates.new", O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0666) = 24
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/lock", O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0640) = 24
open("/etc/apt/sources.list", O_RDONLY) = 25
open("/var/lib/dpkg/lock", O_RDWR|O_CREAT|O_TRUNC, 0640) = 3
open("/var/lib/dpkg/updates/", O_RDONLY|O_NONBLOCK|O_LARGEFILE|O_DIRECTORY) = 4
open("/etc/apt/sources.list", O_RDONLY) = 4
open("/var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin", O_RDONLY) = 4
open("/var/lib/aptitude/pkgstates", O_RDONLY) = 4
open("/var/lib/dpkg/status", O_RDONLY) = 4
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/security.debian.org_dists_stable_updates_non-free_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 5
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/security.debian.org_dists_stable_updates_contrib_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 6
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/security.debian.org_dists_stable_updates_main_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 7
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/non-us.debian.org_debian-non-US_dists_unstable_non-US_non-free_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 8
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/non-us.debian.org_debian-non-US_dists_unstable_non-US_contrib_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 9
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/non-us.debian.org_debian-non-US_dists_unstable_non-US_main_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 10
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/mirror.pacific.net.au_debian_dists_experimental_contrib_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 11
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/mirror.pacific.net.au_debian_dists_experimental_main_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 12
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/mirror.pacific.net.au_debian_dists_unstable_contrib_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 13
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/mirror.pacific.net.au_debian_dists_unstable_main_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 14
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.wa.au.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_contrib_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 15
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.wa.au.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_non-free_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 16
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.wa.au.debian.org_debian_dists_unstable_main_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 17
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/mirror.aarnet.edu.au_pub_debian_dists_experimental_contrib_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 18
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/mirror.aarnet.edu.au_pub_debian_dists_experimental_main_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 19
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/mirror.aarnet.edu.au_pub_debian_dists_unstable_contrib_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 20
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/mirror.aarnet.edu.au_pub_debian_dists_unstable_non-free_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 21
open("/var/lib/apt/lists/mirror.aarnet.edu.au_pub_debian_dists_unstable_main_binary-i386_Packages",
O_RDONLY) = 22
open("/usr/share/tasksel/debian-tasks.desc", O_RDONLY) = 23
I've got complete strace output if anyone wants it :)
-Mary
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