[SOLVED]Updgrade to Cinnamon 1.8: doesn't work anymore

[palimmo]

Hello!
I’m using LMDE on a Live USB with persistence.
It’s great!
But after an update (cinnamon 1.6.7 -> 1.8.2) I can’t run cinnamon anymore and i’m on gnome classic.
well, I’ve tried to reinstall cinnamon but that’s the result!

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get install cinnamon
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
cinnamon : Depends: gir1.2-javascriptcoregtk-3.0 but it is not installable
Depends: gir1.2-webkit-3.0 but it is not installable
Depends: python-pyinotify but it is not installable
Recommends: nemo but it is not going to be installed
Recommends: cinnamon-screensaver but it is not going to be installed
Recommends: gir1.2-gjsdbus-1.0 but it is not installable
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

What can I do now?
thanks for your cooperation

[karlchen]

Hello, palimmo.

You cannot update whole software packages like Cinnamon on a live system with persistence. Persistence allows you to store your own settings and a few data files. This is all. You cannot update the software of a live system this way.

Kind regards,
Karl

[palimmo]

Hello, palimmo.

You cannot update whole software packages like Cinnamon on a live system with persistence. Persistence allows you to store your own settings and a few data files. This is all. You cannot update the software of a live system this way.

Kind regards,
Karl

Oh, thank you Karl.
This is really interesting! But why? What's the difference between this live system with persistence and a normal installation?

thanks,
alessio

[karlchen]

Hello, Alessio.

The live system uses a read-only squashfs filesystem. A normal installation uses read-write filesystems. The squashfs filesystem saves a lot of disk space. It is mounted in RAM only. Once you shutdown the live system everything which you did on the filesystem will be discarded. And the squashfs filesystem file on the boot medium (USB pendrive, DVD) will remain unmodified.

Cheers,
Karl

[palimmo]

Hello, Alessio.

The live system uses a read-only squashfs filesystem. A normal installation uses read-write filesystems. The squashfs filesystem saves a lot of disk space. It is mounted in RAM only. Once you shutdown the live system everything which you did on the filesystem will be discarded. And the squashfs filesystem file on the boot medium (USB pendrive, DVD) will remain unmodified.

Cheers,
Karl

Well... but I think here you mean a normal usb live without persistence.
Am I wrong?

[karlchen]

Well... but I think here you mean a normal usb live without persistence.
Am I wrong?

Yes, you are.
The actual Linux Mint operating system plus all the software that it brings along on a bootable live system is sitting inside a large squashfs filesystem data file. Parts of this squashfs filesystem get extracted into RAM at runtime.
The option to have a persistence file was added in order to make up for a drawback of any live system: It is read-only. I.e. whatever you have done, whatever you have changed, whatever you have configured, it will all be lost once you shutdown the live system.
The persistence file gives you the chance of saving configuration files and data files created during a live session across reboots.

Karl

[karlchen]

Hello, Alessio.

I’m using LMDE on a Live USB with persistence. [...] But after an update (cinnamon 1.6.7 -> 1.8.2) I can’t run cinnamon anymore and i’m on gnome classic.

As any live system is read-only there is no chance of rendering the live system totally unusable.
Boot the live system without persistence and it will be back to the original state.
Drop the persistence file.
Reboot the live system with persistence and use it. And keep in mind that the operating system and the software of the live system cannot be changed permanently.

Karl

[palimmo]

Now it's clear!
thanks Karl! I really appreciate your help!

[karlchen]

Hi, Alessio.

If you want an LMDE live system which includes Cinnamon 1.8, you might proceed like this:
+ Install LMDE from the live system on a harddisk
+ Install all the updates which you want to be included, among other software Cinnamon 1.8
+ Remaster your own live system from the installed system

On Ubuntu and on Mint based on Ubuntu I would still choose to use Remastersys for this task. Yet, I am not certain whether Remastersys can be used in order to create an LMDE live system.

But there may be LMDE users around in this forum who do know and who will share their knowledge (I hope).

Cheers,
Karl

[palimmo]

Hi, Alessio.

If you want an LMDE live system which includes Cinnamon 1.8, you might proceed like this:
+ Install LMDE from the live system on a harddisk
+ Install all the updates which you want to be included, among other software Cinnamon 1.8
+ Remaster your own live system from the installed system

On Ubuntu and on Mint based on Ubuntu I would still choose to use Remastersys for this task. Yet, I am not certain whether Remastersys can be used in order to create an LMDE live system.

But there may be LMDE users around in this forum who do know and who will share their knowledge (I hope).

Cheers,
Karl

It seems possible!
http://livelinux.altervista.org/Guida_LMDE/remastersys.html
cheers,
alessio