Comment 3 for bug 722946

On 22 February 2011 04:52, Anders Kaseorg <email address hidden> wrote:
> Hmm.  The actual error is that git.el already exists.
>
> Setting up git (1:1.7.4.1-1) ...
> install/git: Handling install of emacsen flavor emacs
> install/git: Handling install of emacsen flavor emacs23
> install/git: byte-compiling for emacs23
> ln: creating symbolic link `git.el': File exists
> emacs-package-install: /usr/lib/emacsen-common/packages/install/git emacs23 emacs23 failed at /usr/lib/emacsen-common/emacs-package-install line 30, <TSORT> line 1.
> dpkg: error processing git (--configure):
>  subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
>
> Do you know what what the existing git.el is?  Try something like
>  find /usr -name git.el | xargs -r ls -l
> for example.

As far as I can tell it was created by a previous version of the git
package (possibly from the git ppa?), the link (and another that
caused almost the same failure) was already pointing to the same
place.

On my own system I fixed the issue by removing the two links (git.el
and git-blame.el) before re-running dpkg.

I've prepared a version of the git package that changes ln -s to ln
-sf in the relevant script to work around the error, but I don't know
if that's a good way to solve the issue, or if it might cause any
other problems, so I haven't uploaded it anywhere yet (also noone else
has reported or confirmed it so maybe it was just my system in the
first place...)

--
Matt Wheeler
<email address hidden>