Removing alternates -- but how?

From: Thomas Schwinge <thomas@schwinge.name>
Date: Apr 13, 2010, 12:57 UTC
Message-ID: <20100413125704.GA29552@dirichlet.schwinge.homeip.net>

Hello!

According to ``information on the web'', it should be fine to do ``git repack -a && rm .git/objects/info/alternates'', however that doesn't work for me:

    $ cat .git/objects/info/alternates
    ../../../glibc/.git/objects
    ../../../../O/work.new/.git/objects
    $ git repack -a
    Counting objects: 18670, done.
    Compressing objects: 100% (7655/7655), done.
    Writing objects: 100% (18670/18670), done.
    Total 18670 (delta 10218), reused 18670 (delta 10218)
    $ mv .git/objects/info/alternates{,.DEFUNCT}
    $ git branch
    error: refs/remotes/grubber/master does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/remotes/sourceware/cvs/fedora-2_3-branch does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/remotes/sourceware/cvs/fedora-2_5-branch does not point to a valid object!
    [...]
    error: refs/tags/cvs/sparc-980522-merge does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/tags/cvs/start does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/tags/master-2008-11-27 does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/tags/master-2009-02-10 does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/tags/master-2009-07-10 does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/top-bases/t/IOCTL_decode_argument does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/top-bases/t/IOCTL_types does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/top-bases/t/____longjmp_chk_cleanup_linux_x86_64 does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/top-bases/t/bits_posix_opt.h__POSIX_THREADS does not point to a valid object!
    error: refs/top-bases/t/bits_pthreadtypes.h does not point to a valid object!
      baseline
      posix/regex_internal.c/MAX_undefined
      t/IOCTL_decode_argument
      t/IOCTL_types
      t/____longjmp_chk
      t/____longjmp_chk_cleanup_linux_x86_64
      t/__rtld_lock_recursive_t
    [...]
      t/verify.h
    * tschwinge/Roger_Whittaker

What am I doing wrong?

Regards,
 Thomas