[tex-live] Strange install problem.

[Karl Berry]

    if I "cd texmf/tex/latex/base" and do an "ls" then it doesn't
    appear in the file list (all the other files do).

Perhaps it is a bug in the ls included in Mandrake 9.1 Professional,
since find can see the file.  You might try a different version of ls.

You could also try a simple perl (or whatever) script that does readdir
on the directory, to see if the bad behavior is specific to ls or the
good behavior specific to find.

HTH,
k