dpkg: `ldconfig' not found on PATH.

**Aldimann** · September 14th, 2009

After some trouble I had with some packages yesterday, apt-get and aptitude now only show the following when I try to install new packages, upgrade etc.

Code:

Can't exec "locale": No such file or directory at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Encoding.pm line 16.
Use of uninitialized value $Debconf::Encoding::charmap in scalar chomp at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/Encoding.pm line 17.
dpkg: `ldconfig' not found on PATH.
dpkg: 1 expected program(s) not found on PATH.
NB: root's PATH should usually contain /usr/local/sbin, /usr/sbin and /sbin.
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (2)
mitja@cube:~$ printenv PATH
/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games

"echo $PATH" and "sudo echo $PATH" both show me

Code:

/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games

How can I fix this mess?

**Aldimann** · September 15th, 2009

I solved the problem by just copying dpconfig and dpconfig.real from another Ubuntu-installation to /sbin/ - I have know idea why it was missing.

**Arand** · September 27th, 2009

I had a very similar problem, the cause of which was rather obvious: Trying to install Karmic packages in jaunty, which in turn pulled in libc updates which threw a fit.

N.B. this is on an amd64 (jaunty) system.

Now, to solve this, my steps were:
(0. Disable karmic repos)

EDIT: As has been noted in following posts, ldconfig have been moved from libc6 to libc-bin on newer versions, if this is the case, you will probably want to replace libc6 -> libc-bin in these commands

I have written an updated version of the guide HERE

1. Get hold of ldconfig & ldconfig.real from the correct version:

Code:

aptitude download libc6

unpack it:

Code:

dpkg-deb -x libc6*.deb libc6-unpacked/

copy them out:

Code:

sudo cp libc6-unpacked/sbin/ldconfig* /sbin/

At this point I did:

Code:

sudo apt-get -f install
sudo dpkg-reconfigure libc6
sudo dpkg-reconfigure libc6-i386
sudo apt-get install --reinstall libc6
sudo apt-get install --reinstall libc6-i386

Of which the reinstalls seemed to be the crucial ones. Now all errors seem to be gone.

- Arand

**alexxroche** · October 5th, 2009

This entry really helped me. I pressed the 'Upgrade' button in update manager when I had an up-to-date version of 8.10. It seemed to try to leap from 8.10 and fell on its face before it reached 9.04, (I thought that with 9.10 almost out 9.04 would be a safe bet by now.)
I could reboot, (my fear was that grub had been munged and that I would have to start from scratch,) but apt-get update; apt-get -f upgrade gave me this ldconfig error and perl complained about regional settings missing,

LANGUAGE = ""
LC_ALL = ""
LC_LANG = "en_GB.UTF-8"

After following the instructions on this page I had to do the following to get my X11 (I'm using the default Gnome as the manager) to work again:

# connect using ethernet to my router because wireless in my Latitude D420 no longer worked [0]
# Then in terminal (pts/0)

aptitude upgrade;
reboot

# After that almost everything worked, (as a desktop should) [1]
# I have to say that I'm a fan of Ubuntu but a normal user would be very upset by pressing a button that their system invited them to press and then finding that their OS no longer worked. I know that upgradeing libc isn't trivial but having the ability to roll back 9.04 -> 8.10 if it does not work would be good.

# I also saw some error about speedstep-centrino.ko but I have not found the exact log entry
# (root@laptop:/var/log# grep -i speedstep *; grep -i centrino *; zgrep -i centrino *.gz; zgrep -i speedstep *.gz; # this found nothing)

alexx

# [0] Linux detected the device and I could set an ESSID but it would not associate
# [1] I run apache on my laptop so I can test things while offline. After this upgrade, (and telling aptitude to leave my apache2 config as is) apache2 no longer interprets my cgi code and just displays it, (but I think this is more of a debian problem than an ubuntu one.)

**Agnaramasi** · March 20th, 2010

Your instructions have saved me, thank you.

**Trismegister** · August 8th, 2010

@Arand. Thanks for your help. Downloading, unpacking and copying libc6 sorted out the mess I'd made!
In my case I'd caused the mess by trying to force through an upgrade from Hardy LTS to lynx LTS on a Virtual Server that I am looking after for a customer who rents it from a provider that prevents the upgrading from one LTS to another.
i.e. I couldn't complete upgrade as was not permitted to update boot sector to boot up upgraded kernel.

**schef** · August 27th, 2010

Hey. I'm working on a debian server but it helped me too. Thanks!

**SammyIAm** · October 18th, 2010

Tried to upgrade my SheevaPlug to 9.10 before learning that it doesn't support 9.10. Registered an account here just to thank you for saving me a lot of hassle trying to reformat/reinstall.