LMDE MATE broken on upgrade - unable to boot at all

[tunist]

greetings!

i noticed that many of the apps i was using in the stable version of lmde were 1 or even 2 years+ out of date and so i set about updating them. i found that some apps could not be compiled due to missing dependencies and i was not finding the right files using my usual methods.
so i decided to enable the 'testing' channel for updates and ran a distribution upgrade from the terminal. i saw that this was going to remove some apps (such as clementine) and not replace them (the total upgrade was 1.3 GB of data).. so i pressed 'no' to that.
next time i ran the update manager gui i saw a similarly large list of files to install and no notification of apps being removed and not replaced.. so hit 'ok'/ 'apply'.
after the lengthy upgrade and clicking through 4-5 prompts to examine scripts that were being replaced (and mostly choosing to upgrade/replace them - except for, as i recall, versions.h and perhaps one other file) the upgrade finished and i rebooted the machine.
the reboot was ok except the nvidia driver had reverted to the gnu/linux vesa variant rather than the 300 series nvidia driver i was using before.
while attempting to change the nvidia driver the machine raised errors during boot, about missing screens from the xorg.conf file.. (i had also run the nvidia-config app along the way as the system advised and rebooted).
i logged in via text command line terminal and renamed the xorg.conf file to reset it, yet that did not resolve the issue. i was seeing error log messages relating to missing screens and did not know what to do.
then unexpectedly i stopped being able to login at all, even to the text command line.. so now i just see a black screen and flashing cursor on boot!
when i run recovery mode from the grub menu the system halts after initialising the external soundcard that is used in the pc and then repeatedly shows a line (infinite loop) about killing a process related to a pci card with a long id code (possibly the soundcard).. and does not complete the boot up.

so for now i am using a live usb image and desiring someone here to help resolve this as i had put considerable effort into customising the mint install and don't really want to go through and do it all again from a fresh install.

anyone?
thanks

[tunist]

i gave up on this.. reinstalled lmde.. need to learn more of how the testing channel is intended to work.

[kurotsugi]

before install new kernel you should uninstall nvidia driver and reinstall it again after you got the new kernel. this also apply for ati user.

[tunist]

how could i have known that?
do you have a link to the details for this issue?
thanks

[kurotsugi]

its a basic rules for all rolling release distro you'll found a lot of articles about it on arch or tumbleweed

[tunist]

oh ok, i am not aware of either of those sites.. i will explore further.
the operating system would certainly be greatly enhanced by including some kind of notification process for informing the admin of such issues rather than reliance on external researching of websites that are not mentioned anywhere in the OS!

[caramba]

Hello there,
I guess I got into a similar problem, LMDE does boot after upgrade after running Mint Update on Sept 17 (huge download) and apparently a new kernel (3.10.2, from 3.2.0.4),
my install doesn't boot anymore. It breaks before the login window. I tried
ctrl alt F1 to boot in console mode, but startx or ctrl alt F6 did not work
I tried updating using aptitude
(update, install gtkorphan, upgrade) but final result shows no difference
The login screen flashes 3 times, then it shows a blank screen...
Is that a question linked to a proprietary graphic driver ? I'm not so sure...

I don't know if it is Update Pack 7 or if it is the new kernel, or what else, but testing is out.
jumping from 3.2.04 to 3.10 is quite surprising, and, finally, not so safe.
What solution ? re-install and move from testing to incoming ?

Would be nice to find easily which repos to use in incoming and in testing...
any comments or suggestions ?
Thanks



Sept 28 : After that problem, I tried updating a second LMDE install on another partition.
. Here are the operations done :
- created a partition image
- loaded update pack 7 (by using the command that appeared on the Mint update program)
and forced the install of gnome (planning to use mate)
-then I run the complete update.



Things went nicely and the system is now fine

From the messages on the forums it seems that a number of people experienced problems but
that things are getting better controlled.

[caramba]

Additional info about upgrading issue : the NVIDIA driver is not used in my case, since the machine is using INTEL graphics
from an I7 3770 CPU. So previous remarks about what to do in case of a kernel change do not apply in this case.

[tunist]

greetings!
I don't have any additional info for you, except to say that i continue to seek the solution here..
i created another thread asking for specifics about which repos to use: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=185&t=145645

[kurotsugi]

if you still have the old kernel you can try to boot up with it. after that you can uninstall the propietary driver and reinstall the new kernel

[tunist]

strangey!
i saw in the update manager that the same/similar bunch of updates is now available via the standard 'stable' channel (update pack 7)..
so, rather than repeat my previous experience with this update, i took the advice of this thread and switched to the nouveau driver before the upgrade. i noticed that the nvidia driver offered in the device driver manager is the same version as the one that is in update pack 7 even though i had not installed the update pack yet!?

when i rebooted with the intention of then installing the update pack, the system crashed on boot in exactly the same way as originally occurred when i ran the testing channel update pack on the previous installation. so clearly there is a lot of false information floating around this forum.

anyone know what is actually occurring here?
i am getting ready to ditch mint based on this.
thanks

[tunist]

i have now updated to pack 7 successfully on my laptop installation of lmde mate.. (which does not use any specifically installed drivers)..
however, the desktop remains broken..
presently i know of no way to resolve this since i am not even seeing a prompt i can type into.
the freaky part is that i didn't even initiate an upgrade.. i just switched from nvidia driver to nouveau in preparation of the upgrade.

[kurotsugi]

try to put 'nomodeset' on boot parameter. it usually works with nvidia user.

[tunist]

aha, thanks.. that has resolved the issue.. i booted to command line, removed /etc/X11/xorg.conf and restarted mdm window manager.. so now i am partway through update pack 7 installation.

[tunist]

i have now completed the update pack 7 on both pcs here.
the only issue i need to resolve (that i am aware of) is that the nvidia driver won't hold the setting for the default screen.. i choose the default screen in the nvidia-settings dialog and it is ignored. (i have saved the settings to etc/X11/xorg.conf).

[kurotsugi]

have you blacklisted noveau? if you haven't block it the system might still using it. you can check which driver used by using inxi command. 'inxi -Fg'

[tunist]

output from that command gives:

GLX Version 4.2.0 NVIDIA 304.88

so that is the non-nouveau driver as far as i know