Comment # 4 on bug 1194199 from Robert Mahar

I am not up to 4 systems, including two laptops, where zypper dup leaves the
system unusable.

One was last updated on Dec 1. 2021 and has been otherwise working.   When I
issued zypper dup, upgrade proceeded normally until numerous dracut-intall
errors were displayed ( it took about 5 minutes for this to stop ) and then
soon after the update was aborted.   The dracut-install error indicated that it
could not copy a file.   The cp command failed.   However the cp binary in
/usr/bin/ had been overwritten by a link to busybox.   On looking at other
binaries in /usr/bin/ many had been replaced by busybox.   Busybox has bot
previously been installed on this system.

- - - -

bob@BOBSTOP:~> ls -lia
ls: invalid option -- 'N'
BusyBox v1.34.1 () multi-call binary.

Usage: ls [-1AaCxdLHRFplinshrSXvctukZ] [-w WIDTH] [FILE]...

- - - -

bob@BOBSTOP:~> cp -v
BusyBox v1.34.1 () multi-call binary.

Usage: cp [-arPLHpfinlsTu] SOURCE DEST
or: cp [-arPLHpfinlsu] SOURCE... { -t DIRECTORY | DIRECTORY }

- - - -

from the zypper dup screen output 

2022-01-02 21:09:02 <1> BOBSTOP(30241) [zypp::posttrans++]
RpmPostTransCollector.cc(executeScripts):140 dracut-install: dracut_install
'/lib/modules/5.14.14-1-default//kernel/crypto/sm3_generic.ko.xz'
'/lib/modules/5.14.14-1-default//kernel/crypto/sm3_generic.ko.xz' ERROR
2022-01-02 21:09:02 <1> BOBSTOP(30241) [zypp::posttrans++]
RpmPostTransCollector.cc(executeScripts):140 cp: unrecognized option
'--sparse=auto'
2022-01-02 21:09:02 <1> BOBSTOP(30241) [zypp::posttrans++]
RpmPostTransCollector.cc(executeScripts):140 BusyBox v1.34.1 () multi-call
binary.
2022-01-02 21:09:02 <1> BOBSTOP(30241) [zypp::posttrans++]
RpmPostTransCollector.cc(executeScripts):140 
2022-01-02 21:09:02 <1> BOBSTOP(30241) [zypp::posttrans++]
RpmPostTransCollector.cc(executeScripts):140 Usage: cp [-arPLHpfinlsTu] SOURCE
DEST
2022-01-02 21:09:02 <1> BOBSTOP(30241) [zypp::posttrans++]
RpmPostTransCollector.cc(executeScripts):140 or: cp [-arPLHpfinlsu] SOURCE... {
-t DIRECTORY | DIRECTORY }

So basically busybox somehow overwrites /usr/bin on these systems and then
everything after that is a total disaster.

I am attaching zypper logs for one system.  I checked the other system I
recouped by doing a upgrade from DVD medium, and the snapshots show a similar
pattern where busybox supplanted the normal binaries.

I suspect that when using the DVD upgrade, the copies of the binaries available
to the installer are those from the DVD ( so not busybox )