[tex-live] Installing TL breaks Ubuntu

[Peter Heslin]

I'm in the middle of upgrading my desktop computer from Ubuntu 6.10
(Edgy) to 7.04 (Feisty), and the upgrade halted with an error message.
When I looked into the problem at the command-line with apt-get, it
turned out that for some package, install-info was complaining about
being supplied arguments that it didn't understand.

Google told me that there are differences between the Debian
install-info and the Gnu install-info, and when I checked my own
system I found that I had two copies, one of which was a symlink from
/usr/local/bin to the texlive tree.  Indeed, when I installed TL, I
put it in /opt, with symlinks to /usr/local/bin, which comes early in
my PATH (not sure if that is the Ubuntu default or if it's me).

I removed the symlink and was able to re-start the upgrade process
successfully, but I think many Ubuntu users would not have been
able even to figure out that the problem was related  to TL. 

I see in the archives that there is past discussion of putting TL's
install-info into a private bin directory, not in the PATH.  That
would have been prudent, given the magnitude of the problem this can
cause -- Ubuntu users may find themselves unable to add, remove or
upgrade packages on their half-upgraded system as a mysterious effect
of having installed TL.
 
Best wishes,

Peter

-- 
http://www.dur.ac.uk/p.j.heslin