Package mdm broken on update

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mirosol

Package mdm broken on update

Post by mirosol »

I'm running 64bit LMDE and since last friday, i've had this as a result to anything i try to do with apt:

Code: Select all

1 not fully installed or removed.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up mdm (1.2.5+lmde) ...
dpkg: error processing mdm (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
Errors were encountered while processing:
 mdm
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
This started when i tried to update the mdm through update manager as a suggested update. Update manager still thinks everything is peachy, but i don't agree as the error is persistent with apt-get -f install.
I've tried the usual clean, reinstall and dpkg-reconfigure, but none of those seem to fix it. So i'm thinking it's a broken package, broken install script or something else wrong in here. All ideas welcome.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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rop75
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Joined: Sat May 05, 2012 6:08 pm

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by rop75 »

Have you tried and run sudo dpkg --configure -a in a terminal?

I've just installed the latest mdm in Debian Wheezy and it works perfectly.
samriggs

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by samriggs »

do you have the updated libc6 installed?
it's libc6 2.17
it can be found in sid or jessie.
I'm not sure the new mdm installed (through the linux mint repo also installed the updated libc6 I know though it needed it to run the new mdm before and I had to install it before it came down through the repos in linux mint.
Sam
mirosol

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by mirosol »

dpkg won't do anything because of the broken package. lib6c 2.17 won't install without breaking locales on version 2.13. So i would need to update the locales to version 2.17 before i could try to install libc6. - Which won't install because of the conflicts between versions 2.13 and 2.17. Those seem to be unresolvable, as too many packages depend on libc6. Are you guys using only debian repos?
eanfrid

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by eanfrid »

It is quite weird for mdm 1.2.5 only needs libc6 >= 2.13
samriggs

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by samriggs »

I'm only using debian repos, but I upgraded my libc6 right off the bat when I first did a reinstall because I knew the new mdm (through mint) needed a higher libc6 then was in the system at the time, this is the mdm with the html5 stuff. Then I installed my other stuff after and some things I had to do through synapics because of this (on the wife's computer it was wine), unless they got it working with a lower libc6 but I know at first I used the deb and it needed the higher one.
But yes a lot of stuff relies on it.
That's what I did to get it working in the beginning of this new mdm stuff.
libc6 >= 2.13 that is strange I got an error when I first did on mine and it wouldn't accept it at all without upgrading it.
mirosol

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by mirosol »

So. In conclusion, we have unsatisfyable dependencies for mdm version that's pushed on every single LMDE+MATE installation. Only way to resolve this at the moment seems to be swapping the repos for debian. Which makes me wonder why the mdm package was rolled out as it can't work on any default installation. Makes me wonder even more why no one else haven't reported this.

LMDE maintainers; please don't roll out packages that will break people's display managers.

Any idea where i could find the deb for the previous version of mdm? I'd like to get it running again without swapping the repos.
eanfrid

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by eanfrid »

I just re-checked all mdm 1.2.5 pre-requisites on my pure-Debian Wheezy 64bits: none of them ask for versions > "stable" (now Wheezy).

So mdm 1.2.5 should work on an up-to-date (Wheezy-based) LMDE. Your problems are probably related to some other software that you installed previously. Notice that I use Cinnamon 1.8.x and not even a bit of MATE on the machine I checked.
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rop75
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Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by rop75 »

Generally speaking, old debs are stored in /var/cache/apt/archives.

But if you have run apt-get clean you might have deleted them. If that is your case, you have several options:

Try to purge mdm and reinstall it again (I guess you have already tried this...)

Edit your sources.list to point to Debian Wheezy repos (see below), and then run sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get dist.upgrade. Fix the problem, and when the next UP is released move back to LMDE or to Jessie

You can try and install the package from [url=http://http://packages.linuxmint.com/list.php?release=Maya]the Linux Mint Maya main repo[/url] (I am not sure if it will work and remember it is never a good idea to mix packages from differente distros, so if you are gona do this, please back up your files, settings and packags with clonezilla)

You can always report the bug and wait for the community to fix the problem.

To move to Debian wheezy, you need to edit your sources.list like this:

deb http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian main upstream import backport romeo
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy contrib non-free main
deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates contrib non-free main
deb http://www.deb-multimedia.org/ wheezy main non-free
# deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-backports main contrib non-free
# deb http://mozilla.debian.net/ wheezy-backports iceweasel-release

Backports and iceweasel repos are optional (funnily enough Debian has just changed their policy as far as Iceweasel and Chromium are concerned and you can get recent versions -sid versions- of those packages in the security repo :shock: :shock: )
mirosol

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by mirosol »

Thanks for the info rop75. I guess i'll just switch to Wheezy then. Let's just hope everything won't break during that process.

----

No. That was not a good idea. Everything went straight to h*ll. Dist-upgrade failed for about 20 services/packages and apt-get install -f made things even worse. So now my system is completely done with broken, unrepairable initscripts for starters.

This thread could be concidered "permanently unsolved" as i'm giving up on LMDE/Debian now. Thanks guys for all your help.

*edit - fixed a typo.
mirosol

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by mirosol »

Actually. Did a fresh network install of Wheezy and i was pleasantly surprised how everything worked out of the box..
WharfRat

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by WharfRat »

Interesting post.

I lost the desktop about two weeks ago after doing a dist-upgrade. Cinnamon and mdm were the only packages involved. I have repaired it by getting into a console, purging cinnamon and mdm then reinstalling mdm. I restarted mdm and set mate as the default desktop before logging in and, to my surprise, everything appears to have returned to normal.

I hope this helps anyone that got hosed by this....

Good luck....
StevetS

Re: Package mdm broken on update

Post by StevetS »

I just got bit by this one.

I'm a new user to Mint, just installed it over my Ubuntu/Cinnamon machine yesterday.
Saw that there were updates to apply after install, so I applied them all.

I've hacked at it a bit, removing mdm fixes the dpkg issue, but now I have to log in and "startx"
I downloaded mdm_1.0.8+nadia_amd64.deb and tried to apply that, but it fails like this:

Code: Select all

Unpacking mdm (from mdm_1.0.8+nadia_amd64.deb) ...
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mdm:
 mdm depends on libc6 (>= 2.15); however:
  Version of libc6:amd64 on system is 2.13-37.
Anyone have any ideas? The dependency does not make sense to me.
I also tried to install gdm3 but ran into other issues. Mint is starting to feel sub-par.
I just want a graphical auto-login desktop on boot, if you know how to get it done, I'm all ears.
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