I've just upgraded all my XFree86 packages from 3.3.6-20 to 4.0-0.8. When upgrading the XFree86 package, tar started to create an archive of the entire filesystem (i.e. starting at /), until I interrupted it. This was whilst executing the "%triggerpostun -- XFree86 < 3.9" script. I'm not completely sure what caused it, but the following line is definitely wrong and may have had something to do with it: /var/lib/xkb /var/state/xkb ../../../../../var/state/xkb (too many ..'s in the path for the symlink). A colleague experienced exactly the same symptoms.
same problem seen by me and many other people, as reported on the news group!
Even if the "../../.." problem is solved, the code that performs the movement of files between the two directories is wrong. In the shell script function, it does something like (cd SRC ; tar cf - DIRS ) | ( cd DST ; tar xf - ) This is wrong, because if SRC or DST do not exist, the tar jobs will be executed without the correct cwd, leading to the potential copying of entire /. The code should instead say (cd SRC && tar cf - DIRS ) | ( cd DST && tar xf - ) Note the "&&" instead of ";".
This could explain some of my problem trying installing new XFree86 packages *mutter* solved that prob but now I get a: XFree86 #################################################unpacking of archive failed on file /usr/X11R6/bin/xterm: cpio: link failed - Bad file descriptor and I end up left with broken XFree86 half-installed and unusable...how to I elminate this problem, FYI /usr/X11R6/bin/xterm does not exist so it should have no trouble creating it in that regards...any ideas? Please... -Stan Bubrouski
This bug can be closed because XFree86-4.0-0.16 fixed this, XFree86-4.0-0.19 is the current version as I am writing this. -Stan Bubrouski