LMDE BREAKAGES - tracking TESTING

[kwatson512]

@aljoriz, no, that didn't work (and I spelled "reconfigure" correctly) . Still comes up in tty1

[aljoriz]

My bad I didn't notice the typo

[gozer]

Got compiz back and working with dual head and nvidia 270. Turned on "indirect rendering" and that fixed it. Before, whenever I attempted to run compiz the desktop would freeze.

[kwatson512]

I tried reinstalling xserver-xorg, but that didn't work either. I also noted that I get a kernel panic on reboot. Here's a screenshot of the last visible lines.

Screenshot.png (16.17 KiB) Viewed 2412 times

[samriggs]

Howdy all

Well I figured I'd upgrade everyone here to LMDE so I don't have to keep installing new versions every six months, all has been going good, two done then I came up against this little toshiba nb500 for my sister, cute little toy but nothing but headaches.
The install went ok, Had to put in the drivers for the realtek wireless a different way then normal, did the ole apt update and then apt dist-upgrade and thats when it went all down hill from there, I sat watching it update for an hour or so, slow as molasses this thing is, then it stopped read a changelog and came up with this

usb-modeswitch-data (20110227-1) unstable; urgency=low

usb-modeswitch from its 1.1.7 version searches for its hardware switching
database in a tarball (/usr/share/usb_modeswitch/configPack.tar.gz) first.
Hence usb-modeswitch-data now only ships this tarball instead of the raw
database files under /etc/usb_modeswitch.d .

If you had modified some of these database files, they have been kept in
place and will override the entries from the tarball, see the README.Debian.

-- Didier Raboud <odyx@debian.org> Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:09:43 +0100

vim (2:7.3.154+hg~74503f6ee649-1) unstable; urgency=low

The vim-lesstif package has been removed in favor of the new vim-athena
package. The intent behind both packages is to provide a lighter-weight GUI
package as well as one that allows using XFLD fonts. The Athena toolkit,
however, has broader usage and reduces divergences with downstream
distributions.

-- James Vega <jamessan@debian.org> Sun, 27 Feb 2011 12:45:40 -0500

(END)

and thats as far as I get now, it won't upgrade past this and of course if you go into the normal updater its nothing but broken packages.
What am I missing?????????

Any help would be appreciated
I tried the -f and xorg they both didn't work.

Thanks in advance
Sam

[zerozero]

hit q and the process will resume;
good luck

[samriggs]

Thanks zero
Ive been redoing and retrying and going in circles for two hours over this
all it took was a q .
Stupid me didn't put in the search till afcter I posted here about modeswitch or I would of found your solution before posting.
Sorry folks but if anyone has the same headache nightmare of going in circle hit the mighty q as zero said.
Here is the thread about this nightmare.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=141&t=71141&p=412400&hilit=modeswitch#p412400

Thanks again zero for the much appreciated help

Sam

[Gerd50]

@samriggs

'apt-listchanges' is installed in your LMDE? You can uninstall it, if you don't want messages like that you've posted above.

More interesting i think is the package 'apt-listbugs', which shows warnings about critical updates before installations with
apt.

[dawgdoc]

More interesting i think is the package 'apt-listbugs', which shows warnings about critical updates before installations with
apt.

I use it routinely. Here is a thread with a bit of discussion about it viewtopic.php?f=141&t=70870&hilit=+listbugs

[samriggs]

@samriggs

'apt-listchanges' is installed in your LMDE? You can uninstall it, if you don't want messages like that you've posted above.

More interesting i think is the package 'apt-listbugs', which shows warnings about critical updates before installations with
apt.

Thanks I want it, so it won't be uninstalled

More interesting i think is the package 'apt-listbugs', which shows warnings about critical updates before installations with
apt.

I use it routinely. Here is a thread with a bit of discussion about it viewtopic.php?f=141&t=70870&hilit=+listbugs

Just bookmarked this link and will look at it tomorrow, I never knew that was there (as the others that posted didn't either) a worthy thing to keep and keep track of things before getting installed, usually I just go for broke and hope my system don't get broke, if so theirs always re installs with back ups

Thanks again folks.
Just installed LMDE on all four systems in here now and there running great, only two more installs to go on a cousins systems.
I'm converting everyone

[sgosnell]

My only complaint about apt-listbugs is that it runs after the packages have been downloaded, not before. I just downloaded a huge update, and then found grave bugs with grub-pc & udev. Serious problems with udev are becoming all too common. IMO apt-listbugs should be installed by default, but MO doesn't count for much.

[Fornhamfred]

I have recently managed to update all levels thro mintupdate except for the various xserver-xorg updates and this has sorted the display problems that I previously experienced with the new kernel but I now cannot connect to my Windows printer on XP. The error is unable to connect to CIFS host. I have also not been able to connect to the network thro Nautilus by using the name but can using the IP address. Nothing has changed on the XP machine.

SOLVED. Tried a thread from Altair viewtopic.php?f=90&t=71298

I can now see the network and have also reinstalled the printer

[8oluf7]

After some broken graphics problems with Ubuntu I installed LMDE on an IBM laptop and an IBM desktop, both with Intel integrated graphics. I used Mint Update, set to its default three levels, for updates. Today, I plucked up courage to enable all five levels and move from kernel 2.6.32 to 2.6.38, reasoning that I could select the old kernel in GRUB if the new one didn't work. Of course, by accepting 'all' updates, I also installed a whole lot of X-related stuff.

The laptop, with an 855GM graphics chip, 'black screened' part-way through the update. Several re-starts and iterations of:

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sudo dpkg --configure -a

and we were 'hot to trot'. Correct display resolution (it changes several times during boot - but that's not a major issue), sound works, pointing device works, touch-pad works. Everything back to normal on a 2.6.38 kernel.

The ThinkCentre S50, with an Intel 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller, behaved differently. It installed the updates, but reset the display to a maximum 1024x768 which didn't fill the screen area. I am a collector of other people's cast-offs, and the monitor for this machine is a LaCie electron22blue with a stratospheric maximum resolution (2048x1536); I normally operate at 1280x960 so that the text is readable. I have persuaded the S50 to make this resolution, and others, available by using:

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xrandr

to list the available resolutions and associated refresh rates, then feeding the ones I want, one at a time, into cvt:

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cvt 1280 960 60

for example. This produces

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Modeline "1280x960_60.00"  101.25  1280 1360 1488 1696  960 963 967 996 -hsync +vsync

which is entered into the "Monitor" section of an xorg.conf file. Repeat for each resolution option desired.

For the time being, I have altered the physical settings of the monitor to rescale the graphics output to fill the screen. EDIT: This also works for the login screen - now that I've corrected a few typos in my custom /etc/gdm3/Init/Default. See http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Working_with_Modelines and http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-change-display-resolution-settings-using-xrandr.html for HowTos.

Any advice on where the changes introduced by this set of updates actually occur and how to fix them would be appreciated.

[Fornhamfred]

This is interesting,in my previous thread to yours I stated that the graphics on my machine were borked when I did a full update including all the x-related stuff. The machine has integrated 82865G. After a restore I refused all the x related updates and my machine is running great on the new kernel. The driver in use is i915 but I cannot see which one of the x related updates could be causing the problem.

This is my thread viewtopic.php?f=141&t=73217#p425294

[peterih]

I have the same problem as kwatson512. I'm running LMDE, LMDE-xfce and Debian testing in Virtualbox under identical settings. Both LMDE and LMDE-xfce fail to start X. With Debian testing there's no problem.

[8oluf7]

... I cannot see which one of the x related updates could be causing the problem.

The packages used to update are stored in /var/apt/cache/archives. Linux ships device drivers in the kernel; we're installing a new kernel, so we're getting (some) new driver versions. X, it appears, needs some stuff to enable its core to use a particular driver. As xserver-xorg and xserver-xorg-core are installed by default, the individual stuff for all (I think) of the drivers in the kernel is also installed. For each video driver, there is a package xserver-xorg-video-[identifier]. Besides the two general packages, the only one that should affect us Intel integrated graphics users is the one that has 'intel' as the identifier. (The xserver-xorg-input-[identifier] stuff shouldn't be relevant - it's for input devices such as touchpads.)

If we find and highlight xserver-xorg-video-intel in Synaptic we can click on 'Get Changelog' and see all of the cumulative changes as this package moves from one version to the next. The phrase: 'Make like the duck - calm on the surface and paddling like mad underneath' springs to mind. Having read the Changelog, I'm none the wiser!

In order to get rid of the physical shift of my display, I think that I need to get to grips with what each of the numbers in the Modeline string does. An explanation appears here:http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Working_with_Modelines. Still some way to go before I'm confident about which numbers to change and by how much.

[peterih]

I have the same problem as kwatson512. I'm running LMDE, LMDE-xfce and Debian testing in Virtualbox under identical settings. Both LMDE and LMDE-xfce fail to start X. With Debian testing there's no problem.

After doing some more research on this, it looks like the virtualbox-ose-* packages have been removed from the testing repositories, which doesn't explain why I don't have the problem i wheezy. However, the packages are in Sid, so I guess they should eventually find their way back into LMDE.

[Fornhamfred]

Thanks 8oluf7

I have again attempted to update all the x related updates but the same display problems occurred.
Have restored again and will continue running without the latest updates as per my screen display.

[dawgdoc]

My only complaint about apt-listbugs is that it runs after the packages have been downloaded, not before.

I always run apt-listbugs in terminal prior to updating. Course doing it this way causes me to enter each package name individually.

A better way would probably be to run a simulated update with apt-listbugs included, something like >> apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade -s && apt-listbugs

[Fornhamfred]

8oluf7 wrote

[The packages used to update are stored in /var/apt/cache/archives. Linux ships device drivers in the kernel; we're installing a new kernel, so we're getting (some) new driver versions. X, it appears, needs some stuff to enable its core to use a particular driver. As xserver-xorg and xserver-xorg-core are installed by default, the individual stuff for all (I think) of the drivers in the kernel is also installed. For each video driver, there is a package xserver-xorg-video-[identifier]. Besides the two general packages, the only one that should affect us Intel integrated graphics users is the one that has 'intel' as the identifier. (The xserver-xorg-input-[identifier] stuff shouldn't be relevant - it's for input devices such as touchpads.

If we find and highlight xserver-xorg-video-intel in Synaptic we can click on 'Get Changelog' and see all of the cumulative changes as this package moves from one version to the next. The phrase: 'Make like the duck - calm on the surface and paddling like mad underneath' springs to mind. Having read the Changelog, I'm none the wiser!]

I have again tried to update just the xserver-xorg and xserver-xorg-core files but although I had deselected all the other updates it pulled them all thro. I did manage to get some screen shots of what is happening and actually on one boot I had a fully functioning machine.

In the pngs you will see the grey boot screen coming thro the desktop. Choosing a browser results in the screen flashing and can see the browser page momentarily and then the system locks.