Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (2372 mails)

[Richard Smith <richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi
Can anyone advise? When I run SuSEconfig in SuSE 6.4 I get

Error: file texmf.cnf not found in ``/usr/share/texmf/web2c''.  
   TEXMFMAIN ``/usr/share/texmf'' seems to have the wrong value from 
    a texmf.cnf file.        

among many similar messages.

 /usr/share/texmf/web2c/texmf.cnf  is a broken link to ../../../../etc/texmf.cnf  
But  /usr/share/texmf/web2c is actually a link to  /var/lib/texmf/web2c  and so
the ../'s follow the REAL path up to / via /var, and down to /etc. In /etc 
sits a file called  texmf.cnf , so why the broken link?? 

The answer is that I have a /tmp partition (shared with another distribution),
and my /var is actually a link to /tmp/VAR.SuSE. So the REAL path to 
/etc/texmf.cnf  needs  an extra ../ to get back to / and thence to /etc.
"find" showed up many other broken links, broken for the same reason.

2 questions:
1. How can the original /var be copied or moved to /tmp/VAR.SuSE without
breaking relative symbolic links?
2. How can package updates be done without perhaps breaking these links? 
3. (Extra) How many installations are in the same boat?     
 
Richard Smith