Cannot seem to be able to resolve tzdata installation error problem

Question

Lately every package I attempt to install, whether designed to run under WINE or not, gives me the same following error report:

debconf: Perl may be unconfigured (Can't locate strict.pm in @INC (you may need to install the strict module) (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.18.2 /usr/local/share/perl/5.18.2 /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.18 /usr/share/perl/5.18 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at (eval 1) line 2.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at (eval 1) line 2.
) -- aborting
Setting up tzdata (2014i-0ubuntu0.14.04) ...
Can't locate strict.pm in @INC (you may need to install the strict module) (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.18.2 /usr/local/share/perl/5.18.2 /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.18 /usr/share/perl/5.18 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at /usr/share/debconf/frontend line 5.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at /usr/share/debconf/frontend line 5.
dpkg: error processing package tzdata (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2
Errors were encountered while processing:
 tzdata
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Seems like I cannot upgrade JRE thus some Windows-like apps don't run.

I also got this message after trying to install HotShots, which runs in a different environment.

Any ideas on how to resolve this problem?

Answer 1

It looks like there is something wrong with your perl configuration. Try command sudo dpkg-reconfigure perl-base then try apt-get again. If it doesn't work please post the output of both commands here.

Edit

Based on your answer - your Perl installation is missing essential files and this is preventing the package manager to fix it.

Have you tried installing perl from source or something similar?

I need more info:

• What is your ubuntu version: cat /etc/issue
• What is your architecture: uname -a
• What is in your system perl directory: ls -l /usr/share/perl

Also check out this answer and see if somehow your perl program is looking at the wrong place.

Also try creating a brand new user with sudo rights, log-on as that new user and try again - just in case the problem is something specific to your user rather than systemwide.