TEXFONTMAPS incorrectly set on tetex-3.0 packaged for Mandrake 10.2?

I had a problem with font generation after updating to tetex-3.0 as packaged by Mandrake
with their new OS release (10.2 aka Mandriva LE 2005). The minimal case was something like
this:

% mktexpk --mfmode / --bdpi 600 --mag 0+540/600 --dpi 540 ptmri8r
     gsftopk: fatal: map file `psfonts_t1.map' not found.
     mktexpk: don't know how to create bitmap font for ptmri8r.

Without going into a lot of detail, a workaround was to add /usr/share/texmf-var/fonts/map//
to TEXFONTMAPS, in addition to /usr/share/texmf/fonts/map//. Is this something broken in
the TeX configuration as setup by the Mandrake RPMs? Is this problem common enough that
there are other workarounds / fixes that apply?

Jon