Read-only filesystem causes "unhandlable error"

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

When /tmp/ becomes read-only, aptdaemon fails with an "unhandlable error" instead of presenting a useful error message.
<http://imgur.com/I97mZ>

[Originally reported by "MHK11395" in <http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/139f5p/new_guy_here_im_getting_this_error_whenever_i/>.]

[Sebastian Heinlein (glatzor)]

Am Freitag, den 16.11.2012, 21:38 +0000 schrieb Matthew Paul Thomas:
> Public bug reported:
>
> When /tmp/ becomes read-only, aptdaemon fails with an "unhandlable error" instead of presenting a useful error message.
> <http://imgur.com/I97mZ>
>
> [Originally reported by "MHK11395" in
> <http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/139f5p/new_guy_here_im_getting_this_error_whenever_i/>.]

There are a lot of ways to break your system. Should aptdaemon deal with
all of them in end? There are also people removing essential system
files that break APT completely.

What kind of error should we show?

We could introduce a new ERROR_SYSTEM_BROKEN which informs the user that
there is a serious problem with the system from which we cannot recover.
The "/tmp is read only" message would be shown in the details only.

Perhaps we could add links to support entry points?

Cheers,

Sebastian

[Sebastian Heinlein (glatzor)]

How should the error look like, Matthew? This is really a very technical issue.