Did I find a bug with gdm v2.20.10-3 upgrade/installation?

Wed Apr 21 11:44:03 UTC 2010

Dear Sir or Madam:

I did an apt-get update and upgrade today, and ran into a gdm error. I 
am not sure if it is a bug or not:

# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
   akregator amor ark blinken cron dpkg indi juk k3b k3b-data 
kaddressbook kalarm kalzium
   kalzium-data kamera kanagram kappfinder kate katomic kbattleship 
kblackbox kbounce kbruch
   kcalc kcharselect kcron kdeaccessibility kdeadmin kdeartwork 
kdeartwork-style kdebase
   kdebase-bin kdebase-data kdeedu kdegames kdegraphics kdelirc 
kdemultimedia
   kdemultimedia-kio-plugins kdenetwork kdepasswd kdepim 
kdepim-kresources kdepim-wizards
   kdessh kdetoys kdeutils kdewebdev kdf kfilereplace kfind kfloppy 
kgamma kgeography
   kgeography-data kget kgoldrunner kgpg khangman kig kimagemapeditor 
kiten kjots
   kjumpingcube kleopatra klettres klettres-data klines klinkstatus 
klipper kmag kmahjongg
   kmail kmines kmix kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk knetworkconf 
knode knotes kolf
   kommander konq-plugins konqueror konqueror-nsplugins konquest konsole 
konsolekalendar
   kontact kopete korganizer kpackage kpat kpilot kppp krdc kreversi 
krfb kruler ksame kscd
   kscreensaver kshisen ksnapshot kspaceduel kstars kstars-data 
ksysguard ksysguardd
   kteatime ktimer ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuser 
kwalletmanager kweather
   kwordquiz kxsldbg lskat
The following packages will be upgraded:
   bash gconf-defaults-service gconf2 gconf2-common gdm 
libdate-manip-perl libgconf2-4
   libglew1.5 libogg0
9 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 125 not upgraded.
Need to get 10.7MB of archives.
After this operation, 156kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Get:1 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main bash 4.1-3 [1,273kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main gconf2-common 2.28.1-3 [1,677kB]
Get:3 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main libgconf2-4 2.28.1-3 [253kB] 

Get:4 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main gconf-defaults-service 2.28.1-3 
[111kB]
Get:5 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main gconf2 2.28.1-3 [150kB] 

Get:6 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main gdm 2.20.10-3 [4,793kB] 

Get:7 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main libdate-manip-perl 6.07-2 
[2,350kB]
Get:8 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main libglew1.5 1.5.3-1 [102kB] 

Get:9 http://ftp.debian.org testing/main libogg0 1.2.0~dfsg-1 [16.5kB] 

Fetched 10.7MB in 29s (368kB/s) 

Reading package fields... Done
Reading package status... Done
Retrieving bug reports... Done
Parsing Found/Fixed information... Done
Preconfiguring packages ...
basename: missing operand
Try `basename --help' for more information.
gdm failed to preconfigure, with exit status 1
(Reading database ... 162346 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace bash 4.1-2 (using .../archives/bash_4.1-3_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement bash ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for menu ...
Processing triggers for install-info ...
install-info: warning: no info dir entry in 
`/usr/share/info/gnu-crypto.info.gz'
Setting up bash (4.1-3) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/skel/.bashrc ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/bash.bashrc ...
update-alternatives: using /usr/share/man/man7/bash-builtins.7.gz to 
provide /usr/share/man/man7/builtins.7.gz (builtins.7.gz) in auto mode.
Processing triggers for menu ...
(Reading database ... 162346 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace gconf2-common 2.28.0-1 (using 
.../gconf2-common_2.28.1-3_all.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement gconf2-common ...
Preparing to replace libgconf2-4 2.28.0-1 (using 
.../libgconf2-4_2.28.1-3_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libgconf2-4 ...
Preparing to replace gconf-defaults-service 2.28.0-1 (using 
.../gconf-defaults-service_2.28.1-3_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement gconf-defaults-service ...
Preparing to replace gconf2 2.28.0-1 (using 
.../gconf2_2.28.1-3_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement gconf2 ...
Preparing to replace gdm 2.20.10-1 (using .../gdm_2.20.10-3_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement gdm ...
Preparing to replace libdate-manip-perl 6.07-1 (using 
.../libdate-manip-perl_6.07-2_all.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libdate-manip-perl ...
Preparing to replace libglew1.5 1.5.1-8 (using 
.../libglew1.5_1.5.3-1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libglew1.5 ...
Preparing to replace libogg0 1.1.4~dfsg-2 (using 
.../libogg0_1.2.0~dfsg-1_i386.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement libogg0 ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for menu ...
Processing triggers for hicolor-icon-theme ...
Setting up gconf2-common (2.28.1-3) ...
Setting up libgconf2-4 (2.28.1-3) ...
Setting up gconf-defaults-service (2.28.1-3) ...
Setting up gconf2 (2.28.1-3) ...
Setting up gdm (2.20.10-3) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/gdm/PostSession/Default ...
basename: missing operand
Try `basename --help' for more information.
dpkg: error processing gdm (--configure):
  subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Setting up libdate-manip-perl (6.07-2) ...
Setting up libglew1.5 (1.5.3-1) ...
Setting up libogg0 (1.2.0~dfsg-1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
  gdm
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/locale: 16824 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/man: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/gnome/help: 2608 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/omf: 32 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/doc/kde/HTML: 0 KiB

Total disk space freed by localepurge: 19464 KiB

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

# gdm --configure
ANTian:/home/ant/download# apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
   akregator amor ark blinken cron dpkg indi juk k3b k3b-data 
kaddressbook kalarm kalzium
   kalzium-data kamera kanagram kappfinder kate katomic kbattleship 
kblackbox kbounce kbruch
   kcalc kcharselect kcron kdeaccessibility kdeadmin kdeartwork 
kdeartwork-style kdebase
   kdebase-bin kdebase-data kdeedu kdegames kdegraphics kdelirc 
kdemultimedia
   kdemultimedia-kio-plugins kdenetwork kdepasswd kdepim 
kdepim-kresources kdepim-wizards
   kdessh kdetoys kdeutils kdewebdev kdf kfilereplace kfind kfloppy 
kgamma kgeography
   kgeography-data kget kgoldrunner kgpg khangman kig kimagemapeditor 
kiten kjots
   kjumpingcube kleopatra klettres klettres-data klines klinkstatus 
klipper kmag kmahjongg
   kmail kmines kmix kmousetool kmouth kmplot knetwalk knetworkconf 
knode knotes kolf
   kommander konq-plugins konqueror konqueror-nsplugins konquest konsole 
konsolekalendar
   kontact kopete korganizer kpackage kpat kpilot kppp krdc kreversi 
krfb kruler ksame kscd
   kscreensaver kshisen ksnapshot kspaceduel kstars kstars-data 
ksysguard ksysguardd
   kteatime ktimer ktouch ktron kttsd ktuberling kturtle ktux kuser 
kwalletmanager kweather
   kwordquiz kxsldbg lskat
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 125 not upgraded.
1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Setting up gdm (2.20.10-3) ...
basename: missing operand
Try `basename --help' for more information.
dpkg: error processing gdm (--configure):
  subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
  gdm
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/locale: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/man: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/gnome/help: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/omf: 0 KiB
localepurge: Disk space freed in /usr/share/doc/kde/HTML: 0 KiB

Total disk space freed by localepurge: 0 KiB

E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
# basename --help
Usage: basename NAME [SUFFIX]
   or:  basename OPTION
Print NAME with any leading directory components removed.
If specified, also remove a trailing SUFFIX.

       --help     display this help and exit
       --version  output version information and exit

Examples:
   basename /usr/bin/sort       Output "sort".
   basename include/stdio.h .h  Output "stdio".

Report basename bugs to bug-coreutils at gnu.org
GNU coreutils home page: <http://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <http://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>
Report basename translation bugs to <http://translationproject.org/team/>

I was upgrading via SSH session, on Windows XP Pro. SP3, with KDE 
v3.5.10 running (wasn't even running Gnome). Is this a bug that I need 
to write up or a local issue on my old Debian box (from 2005)?

Thank you in advance. :)

Sincerely yours,
Phillip Pi