BenV's notes

Surprise, surprise, something broke with the readline library upgrade 😉
While upgrading my slackware(64)-current installation today, this happened:

Verifying package readline-6.3-x86_64-1.txz.
Installing package readline-6.3-x86_64-1.txz:
PACKAGE DESCRIPTION:
# readline (line input library with editing features)
#
# The GNU Readline library provides a set of functions for use by
# applications that allow users to edit command lines as they are typed
# in. Both Emacs and vi editing modes are available. The Readline
# library includes additional functions to maintain a list of previously
# entered command lines, to recall and perhaps edit those lines, and
# perform csh-like history expansion on previous commands.
#
Executing install script for readline-6.3-x86_64-1.txz.
Package readline-6.3-x86_64-1.txz installed.

Package: btrfs-progs-20150213-x86_64-1.txz
‘/mnt/general_stores/OS/Slackware/slackware64-current/./slackware64/a/btrfs-progs-20150213-x86_64-1.txz’ -> ‘/var/cache/packages/./slackware64/a/btrfs-progs-20150213-x86_64-1.txz’
‘/mnt/general_stores/OS/Slackware/slackware64-current/./slackware64/a/btrfs-progs-20150213-x86_64-1.txz.asc’ -> ‘/var/cache/packages/./slackware64/a/btrfs-progs-20150213-x86_64-1.txz.asc’
awk: error while loading shared libraries: libreadline.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
ERROR - Package not installed! gpg error!
awk: error while loading shared libraries: libreadline.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Hmz, seems like awk (which is actually gawk) hasn’t been updated yet, yet it still links to the old libreadline (5).
This in turn breaks loads of things, so while packages are still being rebuilt / link to the old libreadline this might be a good idea for now:

# This is for slackware64, drop the 64 if you run an ancient machine / install.
root@slack64:~# ln -sf /usr/lib64/libreadline.so /usr/lib64/libreadline.so.5
root@slack64:~# ln -sf /usr/lib64/libhistory.so /usr/lib64/libhistory.so.5

Fixed for now 🙂

If you’ve ever had the burden of being an admin of an office with imbeciles that use AccountView you probably already lost a bunch of hairs over it, if it didn’t push you to angry KILL CRUSH DESTROY mode (yet). Fortunately my encounters with the product are usually only in the form of “kill -9 hanging task AVWIN.EXE” or “recover from last night’s backup“. (when will those idiots start using a real database as backend instead of those easily corrupted DBF/CDX files…. idiots. Then again, the horrible garbage still uses FoxPro, so color me surprised.)
Today my boss forwarded me an email with the corresponding ‘Here, update instructions, go fix!‘ command. After a few sighs, a download and a backup of the current installation (version 9.2) I went to work.
Start the installer, next a few times, point it to the old … wait, why can’t I select the network folder that we have the old one installed on?
Apparently since version 9.3 you can’t select non local folders anymore, no matter if you select the server/standalone/workstation install.
Giving it a mapped folder location like “Y:\AccountView9” resulted in a no such location or permission denied message.
Great.
Just great.
But then I got this idea: What if I give it a symlink on a local folder?

C:\Users\Administrator> mklink /D "C:\AccountView9" "\\192.168.1.2\AccountView\AccountView9"
symbolic link created for "C:\AccountView9" <<==>> "\\192.168.1.2\AccountView\AccountView9"

Next I went through the 9.4a installer again and pointed it to the C:\AccountView9 symlink. Result?
“SURE THING! Did you know that there’s an old installation in that folder?”
Ha. I WIN 😉