Comment 13 for bug 114286

I'm seeing this again, after recent kdelibs update (I'm on kdebase-data 4:3.5.8-0ubuntu2.1).

After the update, I first encountered bug #152325 https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase/+bug/152325
which seems to be related.

To fix that, I found I had to:
 - remove a symlinked directory: /etc/xdg/menus/application-merged
 - reinstall the kdebase-data using dpkg-deb:
  sudo dpkg-deb -x /var/cache/apt/archives/kdebase-data_4%3a3.5.8-0ubuntu2.1_all.deb /
That fixed 152325.

I then reinstalled kde-systemsettings similarly:
sudo dpkg-deb -x /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-systemsettings_0.0svn20070312-0ubuntu4_i386.deb /

systemsettings now runs correctly.

Trying to use "aptitude reinstall" for either of these does *not* work. From my limited knowledge, that appears to be the basic problem -- installation of these files just doesn't happen correctly, presumably to do with the way that config files are installed. If, for example, I remove one file from an installed package:

$ sudo rm /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged/kde-essential.menu

This will break kcontrol. I expect that this will restore the file (since the package contains the file):

$ sudo aptitude reinstall kdebase-data

But:

$ cat /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged/kde-essential.menu
cat: /etc/xdg/menus/applications-merged/kde-essential.menu: No such file or directory