LMDE BREAKAGES - tracking TESTING

[gorade]

Running LMDE 64-bit I ran into trouble trying to use Mintupdater and thus changed to console: sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. That seemed to work fine until I installed AMD Catalyst™ 11.2 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver revnr: 11.2 rev date.2/15/2011. The driver seemingly worked fine and I could reboot without problems, but...
then I ran update/upgrade and then Gnome didn't start. It stopped with a blank screen and no respons to key board or mouse.
When I changed to fglrx from repos it worked again.
Thus I infere there is something incompatible between the non free original version and some upgraded program in LMDE. I am not savvy enough to guess what, but I will keep away from the proprietary ATI Catalyst.

[kmb42vt]

@kmb42vt,
yes, i can confirm that: if i try to install hunspell, synaptic wants to remove thunderbird, even if i say yes, after when i want to install thunderbird back, hunspell gets removed so at least atm both it's a no-go

I wondered since I had removed OO from LM10 awhile back and installed LO in it's place which, of course, removed any spell checking dictionary in the process however, I installed Hunspell there without a problem. It would be interesting to know what causes the problem in LMDE though. Guess I'll start by looking to see if a bug report on this has been filed anywhere first.

[viking777]

As someone who doesn't use either OO or LO I feel a little bit detached from the present problems, but they really don't present any mystery. This is what the mozillazine.org/dictionaries page says:

OpenOffice: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Dictionaries (but only download MySpell spelling dictionaries—not Hunspell dictionaries for OpenOffice 2.0.2 onwards)

OK so it doesn't mention LO but maybe it has been updated since that was released. The point is that it makes it quite clear that hunspell is not compatible.

[kmb42vt]

As someone who doesn't use either OO or LO I feel a little bit detached from the present problems, but they really don't present any mystery. This is what the mozillazine.org/dictionaries page says:

OpenOffice: http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Dictionaries (but only download MySpell spelling dictionaries—not Hunspell dictionaries for OpenOffice 2.0.2 onwards)

OK so it doesn't mention LO but maybe it has been updated since that was released. The point is that it makes it quite clear that hunspell is not compatible.

Thanks for the info. It's strange though as it doesn't explain why Hunspell appears to be compatible with Thunderbird on LM 10 then or at least in my case it is and my LM 10 install is pretty much standard. Or perhaps it isn't? I keep forgetting everything I do to my Mint installs.

[mads]

Running LMDE 64-bit I ran into trouble trying to use Mintupdater and thus changed to console: sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get dist-upgrade. That seemed to work fine until I installed AMD Catalyst™ 11.2 Proprietary Linux x86 Display Driver revnr: 11.2 rev date.2/15/2011. The driver seemingly worked fine and I could reboot without problems, but...
then I ran update/upgrade and then Gnome didn't start. It stopped with a blank screen and no respons to key board or mouse.
When I changed to fglrx from repos it worked again.
Thus I infere there is something incompatible between the non free original version and some upgraded program in LMDE. I am not savvy enough to guess what, but I will keep away from the proprietary ATI Catalyst.

Exactly the same symptoms here. Last updates broke Catalyst 11.2 Proprietary Driver. I had to reboot in rescue-mode, remove Ati drivers, install xserver-xorg-video-radeon package and reboot. It worked then, but fglrx drivers makes the screen flicker/flashes all the time. So I had to reinstall Ati Proprietary drivers again.

[viking777]

Thanks for the info. It's strange though as it doesn't explain why Hunspell appears to be compatible with Thunderbird on LM 10 then or at least in my case it is and my LM 10 install is pretty much standard. Or perhaps it isn't? I keep forgetting everything I do to my Mint installs.

That is a bit strange I grant you, but hey, I don't write their wiki maybe the info is a bit out of date, I couldn't see a date on the page. Of course their is a big difference in kernel versions between a stock LMDE and MInt 10, but as conscientious as Linus is I can't see him building dictionary compatibility into the kernel

[zerozero]

@mads @gorade there's already, besides your reports, another one from rdonnelly viewtopic.php?f=141&t=68729 on the same issue;
i assume that the problem arises from using the proprietary driver with the AMD graphic cards? is this correct?

[mads]

@mads @gorade there's already, besides your reports, another one from rdonnelly viewtopic.php?f=141&t=68729 on the same issue;
i assume that the problem arises from using the proprietary driver with the AMD graphic cards? is this correct?

Yes, this is correct in my case.

[zerozero]

tks mads, first post updated

[inktitan]

I didn't know where to post this and I haven't noticed if any one else has the same issues. But My flash plug-ins and Java are having problems after updating Mint Debian Last night
Here is the link
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=68749

[pappfer]

For me Compiz stopped working since last update.

[viking777]

These are my updates for the last few days:

Commit Log for Sun Mar 20 10:45:56 2011
Upgraded the following packages:
firmware-linux-free (2.6.32-30) to 2.6.32-31
gstreamer0.10-lame (0.10.17-0.0) to 0.10.17-0.2
libdate-manip-perl (6.21-1) to 6.22-1
libmailtools-perl (2.06-1) to 2.07-1
libnfsidmap2 (0.23-2) to 0.24-1
libpango1.0-0 (1.28.3-1+squeeze1) to 1.28.3-1+squeeze2
libpango1.0-common (1.28.3-1+squeeze1) to 1.28.3-1+squeeze2
libpango1.0-dev (1.28.3-1+squeeze1) to 1.28.3-1+squeeze2
libquicktime1 (3:1.2.2-0.3squeeze1) to 3:1.2.2-0.4
libraw1394-11 (2.0.6-1) to 2.0.7-1
libsmbclient (2:3.5.6~dfsg-5) to 2:3.5.8~dfsg-1
libwbclient0 (2:3.5.6~dfsg-5) to 2:3.5.8~dfsg-1
linux-base (2.6.32-30) to 2.6.32-31
linux-headers-2.6.32-5-686 (2.6.32-30) to 2.6.32-31
linux-headers-2.6.32-5-common (2.6.32-30) to 2.6.32-31
linux-image-2.6.32-5-686 (2.6.32-30) to 2.6.32-31
linux-libc-dev (2.6.32-30) to 2.6.32-31
python (2.6.6-3+squeeze5) to 2.6.6-3+squeeze6
python-gdbm (2.6.6-1) to 2.7.1-1
python-minimal (2.6.6-3+squeeze5) to 2.6.6-3+squeeze6
samba (2:3.5.6~dfsg-5) to 2:3.5.8~dfsg-1
samba-common (2:3.5.6~dfsg-5) to 2:3.5.8~dfsg-1
samba-common-bin (2:3.5.6~dfsg-5) to 2:3.5.8~dfsg-1
smbclient (2:3.5.6~dfsg-5) to 2:3.5.8~dfsg-1
xserver-common (2:1.7.7-11) to 2:1.7.7-13
xserver-xorg-core (2:1.7.7-11) to 2:1.7.7-13
xserver-xorg-video-intel (2:2.13.0-5) to 2:2.13.0-6

Commit Log for Mon Mar 21 10:13:36 2011
Upgraded the following packages:
avahi-daemon (0.6.28-4) to 0.6.29-1
gthumb (3:2.12.2-1) to 3:2.13.1-1
gthumb-data (3:2.12.2-1) to 3:2.13.1-1
libavahi-client3 (0.6.28-4) to 0.6.29-1
libavahi-common-data (0.6.28-4) to 0.6.29-1
libavahi-common3 (0.6.28-4) to 0.6.29-1
libavahi-core7 (0.6.28-4) to 0.6.29-1
libavahi-glib1 (0.6.28-4) to 0.6.29-1
libavahi-gobject0 (0.6.28-4) to 0.6.29-1
libavahi-ui0 (0.6.28-4) to 0.6.29-1
libgadu3 (1:1.10.0+r1059-1) to 1:1.10.1-1
libxt6 (1:1.0.9-2) to 1:1.1.1-1

Commit Log for Wed Mar 23 11:32:34 2011
Upgraded the following packages:
acpi-support-base (0.138-7) to 0.138-8
acpid (1:2.0.8-1) to 1:2.0.8-3
google-chrome-beta (10.0.648.151-r78498) to 11.0.696.16-r78799
libglib2.0-0 (2.28.1-1+b1) to 2.28.2-1
libglib2.0-bin (2.28.1-1+b1) to 2.28.2-1
libglib2.0-data (2.28.1-1) to 2.28.2-1
libglib2.0-dev (2.28.1-1+b1) to 2.28.2-1
libjs-prototype (1.6.1-1) to 1.7.0-2
live-config (2.0.15-1) to 3.0~a17-1
live-config-sysvinit (2.0.15-1) to 3.0~a17-1
python-clamav (0.4.1-4) to 0.4.1-5
python-pyclamav (0.4.1-4) to 0.4.1-5
udisks (1.0.2-3) to 1.0.2-4

Installed the following packages:
debian-installer-launcher (5)
kexec-tools (1:2.0.1-4)
live-tools (3.0~a3-1)

I don't know exactly when, but sometime recently /sbin/reboot has stopped working, or at least stopped working properly. It starts the reboot process but never finishes it, it starts up again straight into a full desktop (without asking for a login) just a couple of seconds after it begins the reboot (I don't use a splashscreen so I can read it happening on screen- just about - I can't find it in any log file though).

The problem with this is twofold. First the reason I reboot is to get to the grub prompt most of the time and I don't get anywhere near that. The second reason is that when it restarts itself, the resulting desktop is lag ridden and awful, almost as if there are two instances of LMDE running at the same time. There are no high load processes (nothing more than 0.5% of cpu or memory, and there is no fan noise) but the desktop is unusable, it is necessary to shut down completely then start up again for the desktop to return to normal.


/sbin/halt, and /sbin/poweroff work normally, as does Ctl/Alt/Del (which logs me out). Logging out and in again does not cure the desktop unresponsiveness, only a full shutdown and restart will do that. 'shutdown -r now' behaves the same as /sbin/reboot.

I haven't worked out the troublesome update yet, but 'live-config' seems the most likely candidate.
EDIT. Downgraded live-config and live-config-sysvinit - no change, so it isn't that.

EDIT2. Problem solved. The package at fault is kexec-tools. If you remove this the behaviour returns to normal. This entry from the man page probably explains the slow down I recognised:

kexec allows one to load another kernel from the currently running Linux kernel. Normally one would load a kernel, and possibly an initial ramdisk, into the currently running kernel using kexec and then initiate a warm reboot by executing kexec again with appropriate option.

If you have similar problems I suggest removing this package (it has no dependencies) then holding it until some other version comes out.

[mads]

...I don't use a splashscreen so I can read it happening on screen- just about - I can't find it in any log file though...

Boot logging is disabled by default. To enable, run

Code: Select all

gksudo gedit /etc/default/bootlogd

There are only two lines there. Replace 'No' with 'Yes', like this:

Code: Select all

BOOTLOGD_ENABLE=Yes

Next time you boot, you will see the log file "/var/log/boot"

[zerozero]

Atm i'm travelling, and only have my laptop with me (which is only running lmde-sid) but this bug with kexec-tools is also present in sid, rebooting to get to grub only gets us to login screen again.
Didn't have time to debug this, first because as i said, i'm travelling and because this is a single os comp

[kmb42vt]

Atm i'm travelling, and only have my laptop with me (which is only running lmde-sid) but this bug with kexec-tools is also present in sid, rebooting to get to grub only gets us to login screen again.
Didn't have time to debug this, first because as i said, i'm travelling and because this is a single os comp

Kexec-tools loads the kernel into memory and a new kernel is loaded into memory each subsequent reboot afterward so basically your rebooting your Kernel as well as restarting your session as well. Kexec, according to the description, is only intended to be used with a Live session and not with an installed OS or some words to that effect. Probably shouldn't have been included in the updates for an installed Debian or Debian based distro in the first place?

[craig10x]

I was just having the same problem and taking out the package Kexec-Tools restored my re-starts to normal again...it was doing the same on my laptop as has already been described (only when restarting, not on an initial regular boot up) i was not getting my splash screen and it was going right into the session...i even lost my sound during that session...which came back when i did a normal boot up...Since removing Kexec i can now re-start, get my splash screen and normal session again...

I take it this package isn't needed? I wonder why they sent it down in the first place...

[tjweaver]

I take it this package isn't needed?

I also just removed this, not because i was having issues - but because of this post. Is there any reason for me to reinstall and have this running?

[viking777]

Is there any reason for me to reinstall and have this running?

None that I am aware of at the moment. Just pin the uninstalled package in Synaptic it won't show up again then.

[viking777]

...I don't use a splashscreen so I can read it happening on screen- just about - I can't find it in any log file though...

Boot logging is disabled by default. To enable, run

Code: Select all

gksudo gedit /etc/default/bootlogd

There are only two lines there. Replace 'No' with 'Yes', like this:

Code: Select all

BOOTLOGD_ENABLE=Yes

Next time you boot, you will see the log file "/var/log/boot"

I know that, but have you actually tried it?

I have (a long time ago admittedly) but it made no difference because it was 'selective' in what it logged. If you got an error message it would log it for sure, but the messages I saw that enabled me to troubleshoot this were not error messages, only normal boot messages (just not in the right order - a bit like the Morcambe and Wise sketch ). I stopped bothering with boot logging because of this. It has been a couple of years at least since I tried it, maybe it has changed a bit since then, but that was the case last time I used it. Anyway I prefer not having a bootsplash because I will pretty well always look at my boot messages whilst I very rarely read log files!

[jam666]

Hi there!
I've made and update today around 2PM GMT using apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade and it did not ask me to install kexec-tool. After reading this post I did another update just few minutes ago and everything works fine on my laptop, so from my point od view problem seems to be solved.