aptitude Broken in Debian 7.0

Having updated to Debian 7.0, my normal cycle of keeping things up-to-date with aptitude suggested that I install linux-libc-dev.  When I tried to install, things broke saying:

" warning: 'ldconfig' not found in PATH or not executable"

Google initially sent me down the wrong path to a solution to a slightly different problem on the Ubuntu forums.

Taking a moment to actually read the error message, the fix was a simple addition of /sbin and /usr/sbin to my path.  Quite a nice write up of the issue is here.

What I can't explain is why Debian 7.0 removed the sbin directories from my PATH.  It seems to have done it on all the Debian servers I look after.  I can't find any reference to this on the internet.

Upgrading to Debian 7.0 Safety Tip

Note to self: if you are running aptitude to upgrade a Debian version remotely on an unreliable network link then use screen!!!