[Pkg-octave-devel] Bug#786888: Fails to install

[Mike Miller]

On Tue, May 26, 2015 at 14:53:42 +0200, Christoph Egger wrote:
> octave-info fails to install:
> 
> $ dpkg -i octave-info_3.8.2-4_all.deb 2>&1 | tee /tmp/octave
> dpkg: considering removing octave3.2-info in favour of octave-info ...
> dpkg: yes, will remove octave3.2-info in favour of octave-info
> (Reading database ... 608326 files and directories currently installed.)
> Preparing to unpack octave-info_3.8.2-4_all.deb ...
> install-info: No dir file specified; try --help for more information.
> dpkg: error processing archive octave-info_3.8.2-4_all.deb (--install):
>  subprocess installed pre-removal script returned error exit status 1
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>  octave-info_3.8.2-4_all.deb

Hmm, looks to me like you have remnants of octave3.2-info on your system
that shouldn't be there. Installing octave-info is attempting to replace
octave3.2-info and run its obsolete prerm. This package should have been
purged after squeeze and before the install-info transition period was
completed in jessie.

Can you create a local install-info wrapper script in your $PATH before
/usr/bin/install-info and purge octave3.2-info and try installing again?
See for example [1].

See [2] for full details on the install-info transition.

Anyway, I can install octave-info on a clean system without any octave*
packages installed, I think you'll have success when octave3.2-info is
purged first.

[1] http://unix.stackexchange.com/a/146393/16840
[2] https://wiki.debian.org/Transitions/DpkgToGnuInstallInfo

-- 
mike