xdg-desktop-menu says "No writable system menu directory found" on installation

[Gary Mirams]

When installing the IBM tsm backup client I had the following message on lucid (works on precise)

> sudo apt-get upgrade
Setting up tsm-client (6.4.0.7-3) ...
xdg-desktop-menu: No writable system menu directory found.
dpkg: error processing tsm-client (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 3
Errors were encountered while processing:
 tsm-client
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

This seems to be a bug in xdg rather than IBM tsm-client:
https://bugs.archlinux.org/task/33316

I found I could get round it by doing
sudo mkdir /usr/share/desktop-directories/

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: xdg-utils 1.0.2-6.1ubuntu3.2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-55.117-generic 2.6.32.61+drm33.26
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-55-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Sat Jan 18 19:25:16 2014
Dependencies:

PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
SourcePackage: xdg-utils

[dino99 (9d9)]

That version is no more supported; and backport is not expected as its not a 'security' problem