Synaptic package manager crashing in Mint 8 inital install

[kmb42vt]

Hello all,

Nice job on Helena by the way. I'm not exactly new to Linux having used different flavors of Ubuntu over the past year or two and Linux Mint looks like the distro I'm going to stay with.

I did notice one problem when I first installed Helena that I didn't see when installing Ubuntu 9.10 and that was the Synaptic package manager always crashing while attempting to perform a search or switching between different origins and such. Basically, it would crash (just plain disappear and nothing else) when I did anything within the package manager window. The problem was solved by setting the Update manager to level 5 and installing all the latest updates (maybe installing the kernel packages for version 2.6.31 on x86 was the solution?). The Package manager was fine after that.

Quick question: I take it that setting Helena's Update manager to level 5 is equal to what updates are normally available by default in Ubuntu Karmic's Update manager? I'm just asking as I noticed I was getting Kernel update notifications after an initial install with Ubuntu but not with Mint 8.

[viking777]

Quick question: I take it that setting Helena's Update manager to level 5 is equal to what updates are normally available by default in Ubuntu Karmic's Update manager? I'm just asking as I noticed I was getting Kernel update notifications after an initial install with Ubuntu but not with Mint 8.

Level 5 = what you would get from synaptic. Not too sure about karmic update manager so I can't comment. If you enable level 5 you will get kernel updates certainly.

[kmb42vt]

Quick question: I take it that setting Helena's Update manager to level 5 is equal to what updates are normally available by default in Ubuntu Karmic's Update manager? I'm just asking as I noticed I was getting Kernel update notifications after an initial install with Ubuntu but not with Mint 8.

Level 5 = what you would get from synaptic. Not too sure about karmic update manager so I can't comment. If you enable level 5 you will get kernel updates certainly.

Viking - Thanks for the quick reply. The Ubuntu Update manager, which really isn't that different, could be considered "wide open" all the time--no ability to set different levels of updates as in Helena's Update manager although I see the purpose of having the ability to do so. Keeps the average user safe you could say?

I was still rather surprised to see the Synaptic package manager crashing after the initial install (level 3 updates didn't help) when there wasn't a problem in Ubuntu Karmic (they use the same kernel at first install). Makes me wonder what the difference could be since the same Synaptic package manager is used by both.

There always has to be some sort of mystery, right?

[viking777]

No mystery at all actually. The Mint version of synaptic is distinctly different to the Karmic version - try finding the 'Mark All Upgrades' button on the Mint version - it isn't there (more 'protection' features). There have been a few threads on the forum about that from people like me that resent that kind of interference in my computing experience. However I have calmed down a bit now because I have finally got Mintupdate working (it didn't work to begin with) and as long as you select level 5 updates it works much the same as synaptic for upgrades (not for package management though, you still need synaptic for that). So there is no mystery as to why they are different, they have been made that way by Mint development, although that doesn't explain why it crashed on you.

[kmb42vt]

No mystery at all actually. The Mint version of synaptic is distinctly different to the Karmic version - try finding the 'Mark All Upgrades' button on the Mint version - it isn't there (more 'protection' features). There have been a few threads on the forum about that from people like me that resent that kind of interference in my computing experience. However I have calmed down a bit now because I have finally got Mintupdate working (it didn't work to begin with) and as long as you select level 5 updates it works much the same as synaptic for upgrades (not for package management though, you still need synaptic for that). So there is no mystery as to why they are different, they have been made that way by Mint development, although that doesn't explain why it crashed on you.

Ah, I didn't realize that Mint's version of the Package Manager (Synaptic) was different from the vanilla version Ubuntu uses. Yup, the "Mark All Upgrades" button is gone. Never would have noticed that since I always used Ubuntu's "Update Manager" for installing updates. As I said before, there's no "levels" in the plain old default "Update manager" like there is in "Mintupdate"

I did do a complete reinstall mainly because I wanted to separate my swap, root and home into separate partitions (as per Fred's "Newbie Questions" post: "Considerations before installing". Once I managed to get to my desktop (it failed on the first reboot this time around. Wouldn't load the Login splash screen) the Package Manager crashed the first time I attempted to use it but on subsequent tries it appeared to be behaving itself.

On Mintupdate: Worked out of the box on both installs in my case. I left it a level 3 this time around just to see how things would work out. Last time I installed all the level 3 updates before I tried using the Package Manager and then had to install level 5 updates before the Package Manager would behave itself. This, plus the different partitioning scheme was the only differences between installs. So far I've added the PPA for the Mozilla build team and downloaded and installed Thunderbird 3 via the Package Manager and everything worked as expected.