debconf or perl error during apt-get install [closed]

Question

I use Linux Mint 16 and always get an error when installing a package by apt-get install:

Reading package lists... Done Building dependency tree Reading state information... Done sqlitebrowser is already the newest version. 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 26 not upgraded. 1 not fully installed or removed. After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used. Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 44, chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in -e at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 46, chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 47, chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in -d at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 48, chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 49, chunk 3. debconf: DbDriver "config": mkdir :No such file or directory Setting up man-db (2.6.5-2) ... Use of uninitialized value in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 44, chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in -e at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 46, chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value in pattern match (m//) at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 47, chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in -d at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 48, chunk 3. Use of uninitialized value $directory in concatenation (.) or string at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/DbDriver/File.pm line 49, chunk 3. debconf: DbDriver "config": mkdir :No such file or directory dpkg: error processing man-db (--configure): subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1 Errors were encountered while processing: man-db E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Running

sudo apt-get install debconf --reinstall

or

sudo apt-get update --fix-missing
sudo apt-get autoremove && sudo apt-get clean && sudo apt-get install -f

only solved the temporarily(til the next reboot)

Perhaps I have installed perl once, not by using apt-get. I also tried to reinstall perl with synaptic, but it didn't help. What can I do?

Answer 1

I've found the problem myself.

I am using an SSD. That's why I mounted /var/cache to RAM(via tmpfs) in order to limit write access on the SSD. Debconf puts it's cache to /var/cache/debconf when installing it. But this is on RAM. So after every restart apt-get only worked if I reinstalled deconf.

Of course the definite solution in this case was to run

mkdir /var/cache/debconf

in a bootup script.