"can't find the info directory"

[doclist]

Binary package hint: emacs23

When trying to run "info" from emacs 23.1+1-4ubuntu7 I receive the
error "can't find the info directory" and cannot view the info
documentation (it is blank).

Bug#543564 in Debian might be related.

I noticed that emacs-jabber install /usr/share/info/dir.gz. I do not
know if this is correct behaviour (the Debian bug discussion implies
not).

A work around is to gunzip /usr/share/info/dir.gz

[era (era)]

emacs-jabber 0.8.0-2 in Debian appears to have a fix for this problem; there does not seem to be an associated upstream bug report, though. http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/e/emacs-jabber/emacs-jabber_0.8.0-2/changelog

[era (era)]

Confirming based on availability of an upstream fix

[era (era)]

ocp-0.1.17-2 (in Karmic and Lucid) has the fix.

[doclist (dclist)]

How is this "Fix Released"? It doesn't make sense that I have to
install package B in order to fix a bug in package A, even though
package B may have the same or similar bug.

[era (era)]

> How is this "Fix Released"? It doesn't make sense that I have to
> install package B in order to fix a bug in package A, even though
> package B may have the same or similar bug.

This bug is divided into "tasks". The task for ocp is Fix Released, meaning the problem which used to cause users of ocp to experience this problem (that it included /usr/share/info/dir.gz in the package) has been fixed in that package. Other packages which still have tasks open are still affected; in your case, the task for emacs-jabber remains open. As a workaround, you could install the newest Debian emacs-jabber package, but since you already devised a different workaround, that's moot in your case.

[era (era)]

The bug watch for ocp was changed because of a bug in Launchpad, apparently. Reverting that change.

[era (era)]

Sorry for the spam, experimenting with Launchpad in order to report bug #557931

[era (era)]

As Ubuntu now ships emacs-jabber 0.8.0-2 (since rather long ago, in fact), change to Fix Released.

[era (era)]

Lintian has a check for this since 2009. I would be tempted to close the bug against Ubuntu emacs23 but for the time being, I simply marked it as Confirmed, based on the number of reported (and now fixed) tasks for other packages.

[era (era)]

Oh, the Lintian change is http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=535566