[[!comment format=mdwn
 username="joey"
 subject="""comment 2"""
 date="2016-12-10T15:13:44Z"
 content="""
I think that the "x86-32, for ancient kernels" build should avoid this
problem. <http://git-annex.branchable.com/install/Linux_standalone/>

It's very surprising if this lead to symlinks being created that apparently
contain garbage in their link targets. Perhaps glibc is failing in a way
with the old kernel that leads to memory corruption? I have asked the GHC
developers if that could be the case in
<https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/12865>

I hope that the content of your files is in fact somewhere under
`.git/annex/objects/` -- look around, and with some luck, you may find it.
Unfortunately, the information about, which object file goes with which
working tree has apparently been lost. (Also, you might check if these
symlinks have been staged in git; it's possible though unlikely that the
correct link target got staged in git.)

I have filed a bug on Debian's ghc to get them to fast-track getting the
patch into ghc. <https://bugs.debian.org/847677>
"""]]