The unofficial LMDE KDE UP5 [UPDATE: 16/10/2012]

[GeneC]

Anything else I can test?

can you break it?

Trying like heck 'zz', but its pretty bulletproof....

[Schoelje]

Some things I found out:

1. You get an error if you want to set time to a time server: remove the ntp package (added to "Known bugs and work arounds")
   

   Code: Select all

   sudo apt-get purge ntp

   
   
2. The unofficial LMDE KDE has some fans in the Spanish speaking world but hardly ever come here because of the language barrier:
   
   Busco a alguien que pueda traducir y mantener un foro sobre LMDE KDE en español: viewtopic.php?f=61&t=113571
   
   
3. DDM and DPM are absolutely and totally perfect because I haven't heard much complaining since UP5 and the DDM thread (viewtopic.php?f=47&t=113559) has zero messages

[KBD47]

I downloaded the 32 bit iso and used unetbootin to put it on a usb. It booted up OK, but no wireless as has been mentioned in this thread, also it would not mount the usb I wanted to do a full install on, said I was 'not authorized' to mount it. But I was able to do a full install to the usb stick and had no issues with that. I really like the DDM at startup, very good idea to incorporate across Mint. It told me I could install multicore support for 32 bit, I installed it without issue.
I will play with this for several days and see how it goes, so far looks very good. If this is going to be made an official part of Mint, and I seriously think it should, I would encourage getting wireless support working out of the box on the live 32 bit iso, that is one of the first things most users would check. I'd also encourage fixing the mount issue on the live iso. Otherwise this is quite impressive and again, really should be added to the official LMDE choices for Mint
Great job!
edit/update: just came across a big issue, no sound. I checked the settings and not sure why there is no audio at all, looks like its seriously missing.

[Schoelje]

I downloaded the 32 bit iso and used unetbootin to put it on a usb. It booted up OK, but no wireless as has been mentioned in this thread, also it would not mount the usb I wanted to do a full install on, said I was 'not authorized' to mount it...

These issues were introduced since the UP5 upgrade and I've been at it for weeks but couldn't find a solution for it.
I am not certain, but I think that not being able to shutdown or restart, mount an USB or add a wireless connection all do have a common origin.
As far as I know, the 64-bit version does not have these issues.

I tried to find a solution upstream: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=682606
But that was a dead end: "...The whole thing looks like Debian-specific and thus you are better off going to a Debian bug tracker."
So I recently filed this issue here: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=307680
But I hadn't had a response yet.

I anyone would like to try and solve this puzzle: Below you find the output of dist-upgrade.
Somewhere in those packages lies the problem (It's not the kernel version...already tried that).

[EDIT]
I'm braking up the list of packages in groups to find out which one's the culprit.
I'll be adapting the list as I go.

Code: Select all

x11-apps x11-common x11-utils
  x11-xfs-utils x11-xkb-utils x11-xserver-utils x11proto-core-dev
  x11proto-input-dev x11proto-kb-dev x11proto-xext-dev

  xauth xfonts-mathml
  xfonts-utils xfsprogs xinit xml-core xnest xsane xscreensaver-data
  xscreensaver-data-extra xscreensaver-gl xscreensaver-gl-extra
  xscreensaver-screensaver-bsod
 
  xtrans-dev xz-utils
  yelp-xsl zenity zenity-common
  zip zlib1g
 
  virtualbox-guest-dkms virtualbox-guest-utils
  virtualbox-guest-x11
 
  xserver-common xserver-xorg xserver-xorg-core
  xserver-xorg-input-all xserver-xorg-input-evdev xserver-xorg-input-synaptics
  xserver-xorg-input-wacom xserver-xorg-video-apm xserver-xorg-video-ark
  xserver-xorg-video-ati xserver-xorg-video-chips xserver-xorg-video-cirrus
  xserver-xorg-video-fbdev xserver-xorg-video-i128 xserver-xorg-video-i740
  xserver-xorg-video-intel xserver-xorg-video-mach64 xserver-xorg-video-mga
  xserver-xorg-video-neomagic xserver-xorg-video-nouveau
  xserver-xorg-video-openchrome xserver-xorg-video-r128
  xserver-xorg-video-radeon xserver-xorg-video-rendition xserver-xorg-video-s3
  xserver-xorg-video-s3virge xserver-xorg-video-savage
  xserver-xorg-video-siliconmotion xserver-xorg-video-sis
  xserver-xorg-video-sisusb xserver-xorg-video-tdfx xserver-xorg-video-trident
  xserver-xorg-video-tseng xserver-xorg-video-vesa xserver-xorg-video-vmware
  xserver-xorg-video-voodoo

[KBD47]

These issues were introduced since the UP5 upgrade and I've been at it for weeks but couldn't find a solution for it.
I am not certain, but I think that not being able to shutdown or restart, mount an USB or add a wireless connection all do have a common origin.
As far as I know, the 64-bit version does not have these issues.

I tried to find a solution upstream: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=682606
But that was a dead end: "...The whole thing looks like Debian-specific and thus you are better off going to a Debian bug tracker."
So I recently filed this issue here: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=307680
But I hadn't had a reaction yet.

I anyone would like to try and solve this puzzle: Below you find the output of dist-upgrade.
Somewhere in those packages lies the problem (It's not the kernel version...already tried that).

The biggest issue I have with LMDE KDE right now is no sound. I've checked firmware, settings, I have no clue why it doesn't work and it's the first time I've had that issue with any distro And that is a full install, not just the live cd.

[TeaSwigger]

The biggest issue I have with LMDE KDE right now is no sound. I've checked firmware, settings, I have no clue why it doesn't work and it's the first time I've had that issue with any distro And that is a full install, not just the live cd.

Probably not related (I'm using 64-bit), but... have you tried tossing out Pulseaudio and depending on ALSA instead?

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio*

[KBD47]

Probably not related (I'm using 64-bit), but... have you tried tossing out Pulseaudio and depending on ALSA instead?

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio*

Thanks. Just tried that and no luck. It is shame, because I believe this one could be a contender, but no wireless or sound on the 32 bit on the iso, and no sound with a full install is not good. I have 2 KDE Wheezy installs with no sound problems on two different computers, so I'm not sure what the issue is

[arjay]

Schoelje

You may remember that ages ago I successfully ran UP4 on two PCs and tested a some nvidia cards for DDM. I also successfully updated both PCs to UP5 early on with your script and UP5 ran beautifully on both PCs. This time I have done a fresh install of your UP5 32-bit iso on the second PC with reformatted partitions to test it out, including DDM. Unfortunately I am surprised to find several problems:

1. One very small thing - in the partition editor, the box "Edit Partitions" is still in Spanish: "Editar particiones" even though I have chosen English and a UK K/B (I live in Spain). Did this in UP4 also.

2. After completing install it says something like "Need to reboot now" but nothing happens? Is this supposed to be an auto process or manual? Obviously if manual, there is a problem because of no Reboot choice in the Live DVD menu. I had to choose Shutdown from Favourites. This doesn't actually shut down at all. The screen blanks and the DVD ejects but even after removing the DVD and closing the tray, the PC keeps running. Left it for a few minutes but eventually had to use the manual reboot button.

3. After powering up again I got to the login screen OK but it refused to accept the PW created earlier. I know it is the right PW because it is specific to this PC. Checked the usual things by using the username box to type in - text was lower-case not CAPS and the keyboard was producing the right symbols for the PW. I can only assume that the previous shutdown had not gone properly? I tried rebooting but it would still not accept the PW. I then tried using the Recovery entry in the grub menu but it would not boot. It showed the following error "List of all partitions - no filesystem could be mounted by root" or something similar. I rebooted, edited the linux line in the recovery menu option to delete"ro single" and replace it with "rw init=/bin/bash". This should give a terminal bypassing the PW but it didn't. However it did give me a different login screen where I entered the original PW and it allowed me to boot, having twice refused the same PW!!!

4. Now the show-stopper. I finally got to the DDM Welcome screen which looked nice and correctly identified the Nvidia GeForce 210 card and offered the multicore kernel. I chose both and clicked "Install drivers". It asked for the password which i entered and then it started installing the drivers and new kernel - took about 5 minutes and reported "Drivers installed OK". But nothing happened after that. What is the user supposed to do? I did see the box "Get started" which tried clicking but nothing happened. Not sure what you are supposed to do at that point? Anyway I closed the DDM screen. It never told me to reboot which I expected after a video driver install.

Anyway, i ran nvidia-settings as root but just got "you do not appear to be using the nvidia X driver - edit Xorg config or run nvidia-config as root". There was no content in the nvidia-settings windows. I checked the xorg.conf file and it showed nvidia as the driver. So I tried a reboot and I got dumped to a terminal. I logged in and tried startx. This gave "FATAL: Module nvidia not found". I had a look at the Xorg.0.log file. It finished very quickly with "NVIDIA: Failed to load NVIDIA kernel module" and "No driver found".

Over to you

[arjay]

The biggest issue I have with LMDE KDE right now is no sound. I've checked firmware, settings, I have no clue why it doesn't work and it's the first time I've had that issue with any distro And that is a full install, not just the live cd.

Probably not related (I'm using 64-bit), but... have you tried tossing out Pulseaudio and depending on ALSA instead?

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio*

Had the same problem when I updated from UP4 to UP5 using the script. I also uninstalled pulseaudio but it didn't help then I re-installed it and, bingo it worked OK - go figure but YMMV.

RJ

[KBD47]

arjay, I also had trouble with the login screen. I thought I could just login with the password because the user name is already there, but had to highlight the user name before putting in the password to get it to login, at least the 32 bit was that way.
Regarding the sound, I will try a reinstall of pulseaudio. Makes me wonder if it works by reinstalling it what was missing from pulseaudio to start with.
update: reinstalled pulseaudio but still no sound.

[Schoelje]

1. One very small thing - in the partition editor, the box "Edit Partitions" is still in Spanish: "Editar particiones" even though I have chosen English and a UK K/B (I live in Spain). Did this in UP4 also.

Then this is part of the normal Live Installer. I'll look into it or pass it to Clem.

2. After completing install it says something like "Need to reboot now" but nothing happens? Is this supposed to be an auto process or manual? Obviously if manual, there is a problem because of no Reboot choice in the Live DVD menu. I had to choose Shutdown from Favourites. This doesn't actually shut down at all. The screen blanks and the DVD ejects but even after removing the DVD and closing the tray, the PC keeps running. Left it for a few minutes but eventually had to use the manual reboot button.

For the past week I'm hunting for a solution to this (and other) issues with the 32-bit version...no luck yet. I narrowed it down to the new xserver packages, though.

3. After powering up again I got to the login screen OK but it refused to accept the PW created earlier. I know it is the right PW because it is specific to this PC. Checked the usual things by using the username box to type in - text was lower-case not CAPS and the keyboard was producing the right symbols for the PW. I can only assume that the previous shutdown had not gone properly? I tried rebooting but it would still not accept the PW. I then tried using the Recovery entry in the grub menu but it would not boot. It showed the following error "List of all partitions - no filesystem could be mounted by root" or something similar. I rebooted, edited the linux line in the recovery menu option to delete"ro single" and replace it with "rw init=/bin/bash". This should give a terminal bypassing the PW but it didn't. However it did give me a different login screen where I entered the original PW and it allowed me to boot, having twice refused the same PW!!!

After a first boot, you need to select the user before you type the password. This "feature" is part of the Caledonia KDM theme but you can personalize your KDM preferences in the login screen manager.

4. Now the show-stopper. I finally got to the DDM Welcome screen which looked nice and correctly identified the Nvidia GeForce 210 card and offered the multicore kernel. I chose both and clicked "Install drivers". It asked for the password which i entered and then it started installing the drivers and new kernel - took about 5 minutes and reported "Drivers installed OK". But nothing happened after that. What is the user supposed to do? I did see the box "Get started" which tried clicking but nothing happened. Not sure what you are supposed to do at that point? Anyway I closed the DDM screen. It never told me to reboot which I expected after a video driver install.

Thank you for finding a very interesting bug. Logically you need to first install a new kernel, reboot and then install your graphics card drivers. I will address that in the next DDM version. A message to reboot would be nice too...

Anyway, i ran nvidia-settings as root but just got "you do not appear to be using the nvidia X driver - edit Xorg config or run nvidia-config as root". There was no content in the nvidia-settings windows. I checked the xorg.conf file and it showed nvidia as the driver. So I tried a reboot and I got dumped to a terminal. I logged in and tried startx. This gave "FATAL: Module nvidia not found". I had a look at the Xorg.0.log file. It finished very quickly with "NVIDIA: Failed to load NVIDIA kernel module" and "No driver found".

Over to you

See my previous remark.

Thanks for such an elaborate description of your UP5 adventures
For me...back to the drawing board!

[zerozero]

The biggest issue I have with LMDE KDE right now is no sound. I've checked firmware, settings, I have no clue why it doesn't work and it's the first time I've had that issue with any distro And that is a full install, not just the live cd.

Probably not related (I'm using 64-bit), but... have you tried tossing out Pulseaudio and depending on ALSA instead?

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get purge pulseaudio*

Had the same problem when I updated from UP4 to UP5 using the script. I also uninstalled pulseaudio but it didn't help then I re-installed it and, bingo it worked OK - go figure but YMMV.

RJ

- can we replicate this? i don't have a lmde-kde_32-up4 iso (starting the d/l now) but does the upgrade from up4 to up5 trashes the sound?

- i d/led the lmde-kde_32-up5 version earlier today (usually i only use 64bit) and a quick live test in the laptop (a dell inspirion 1545) shows this no sound issue while at the same time the 64bit has no problem.

now: i'm no sound expert (i can fix my ACL887 card in the desktop but that's about it ) but:
1- is there any fundamental diff in the building of the 32bit and the 64bit?
2- are the installed pkgs exactly the same (or similar taking the different arch)?

[zerozero]

output from lmde-kde32_up5-rc (sound is working in live mode and installed with both 486 and pae kernels)

Code: Select all

zerozero@lmdekde32 ~ $ inxi -Sr
System:    Host lmdekde32 Kernel 3.2.0-3-686-pae i686 (32 bit) Distro Linux Mint Debian Edition
Repos:     Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list
           deb http://packages.linuxmint.com debian main upstream import incoming
           deb http://lmde-mirror.gwendallebihan.net/incoming testing main contrib non-free
           deb http://lmde-mirror.gwendallebihan.net/incoming/security testing/updates main contrib non-free
           deb http://lmde-mirror.gwendallebihan.net/incoming/multimedia testing main non-free
zerozero@lmdekde32 ~ $ cat /var/log/apt/history.log

Start-Date: 2012-09-19  19:33:59
Commandline: synaptic
Purge: device-driver-manager:i386 (0.1.0)
End-Date: 2012-09-19  19:34:04

Start-Date: 2012-09-19  22:12:08
Commandline: synaptic
Purge: device-driver-manager:i386 (0.1.0)
End-Date: 2012-09-19  22:12:13

Start-Date: 2012-09-19  22:17:06
Commandline: apt-get -y --force-yes install linux-headers-686-pae linux-image-686-pae
Install: linux-image-3.2.0-3-686-pae:i386 (3.2.21-3, automatic), linux-headers-3.2.0-3-686-pae:i386 (3.2.21-3, automatic), linux-headers-686-pae:i386 (3.2+45), linux-image-686-pae:i386 (3.2+45)
End-Date: 2012-09-19  22:19:33

Start-Date: 2012-10-05  00:48:07
Commandline: /usr/sbin/synaptic --hide-main-window --non-interactive --parent-window-id 52428905 -o Synaptic::closeZvt=true --progress-str Please wait, this can take some time --finish-str Update is complete --set-selections-file /tmp/tmpjer7_L       
Upgrade: mint-debian-mirrors:i386 (2012.09.18, 2012.09.27)
End-Date: 2012-10-05  00:48:26
zerozero@lmdekde32 ~ $ aplay /usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav
Playing WAVE '/usr/share/sounds/alsa/Front_Center.wav' : Signed 16 bit Little Endian, Rate 48000 Hz, Mono
zerozero@lmdekde32 ~ $ aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: Intel [HDA Intel], device 0: HDA Generic [HDA Generic]
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
zerozero@lmdekde32 ~ $ lspci -vv | grep -i -A10 audio
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) HD Audio Controller (rev 03)
        Subsystem: Dell Device 02aa
        Control: I/O- Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR+ FastB2B- DisINTx+
        Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B- ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
        Latency: 0, Cache Line Size: 64 bytes
        Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 47
        Region 0: Memory at f6afc000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
        Capabilities: <access denied>
        Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801I (ICH9 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
zerozero@lmdekde32 ~ $


live mode tested of the lmde-kde32_up5 (sound is not working despite some of the readings in the the following output are a bit confusing)

[Schoelje]

The more I'm hunting for the issues I described here: viewtopic.php?p=634886#p634886
The more I suspect that all these issues are interconnected.

Something goes wrong when authenticating common processes.
I was able to narrow down all the upgraded packages to a relative small group of about 25 packages...and none are one of the usual suspects.
It seems that this has nothing todo with knotify or network related packages (which I thought at the beginning).

Now, I'm installing the remainder of these packages in groups of 5, creating an iso and running it life, thus narrowing the list further down.
This is a painstaking and time-consuming process but I'll keep you all posted.

[zerozero]

what puzzles me is that as far as i can see none of these issues are present in the 32bit-rc1, so i don''t think it's a UP5 "breakage" or "misconfiguration" (but i can be way off )

[Schoelje]

what puzzles me is that as far as i can see none of these issues are present in the 32bit-rc1, so i don''t think it's a UP5 "breakage" or "misconfiguration" (but i can be way off )

And yes, I think you are this time !
For the past week I've been upgrading the 32-bit version in groups of packages. This way I narrowed it down to one single package (drums, please):

xinit

That package upgraded from 1.3.1-1 to 1.3.2-1
So I started from the UP4 version, held back that package, did a dist-upgrade and booted the iso:

1. The shut down and restart buttons are back
2. I can make a wireless connection
3. I can mount USB

So, I'm going to prepare a service release, test it further and upload asap.

[zerozero]

So, I'm going to prepare a service release, test it further and upload asap.

bring it on

[Schoelje]

I've uploaded a service release with all known bugs resolved so if you could test the 32-bit version:

LMDE KDE 32-bit (1.4 GB)
Torrent: http://www.schoelje.nl/lmdekde/lmdekde32_486_up5sr1_201210.iso.torrent
Direct: http://www.schoelje.nl/lmdekde/lmdekde32_486_up5sr1_201210.iso
md5sum: 07e7615f8d45dfac8c8bfdfb52dd1227

I couldn't test the no sound issue: everything was working fine here but it's very probable that that has been resolved as well.

After install you'll have one update: xinit.
You can install that because it only causes trouble in live-mode.
Yesterday, I've contacted the maintainer of the package so I hope he's going to change that for the next version.

[Edit]
Changed the urls: name represents the kernel type.

[zerozero]

so if you could test the 32-bit version:

you can count with that later tonight.

[tdockery97]

I've uploaded a service release with all known bugs resolved so if you could test the 32-bit version

I'll give it a go too.