Upgrade Warnings: LMDE tracking TESTING [10-11-14]

[dumas777]

I have finally succumbed to the dark side and blew away everything but my home partition and installed pure Debian testing. A lot of cinnamon 2.2 is already in Jessie but the rest is easily installed by adding the line below to sources.list. The rest should become official in Jessie soon. I love mint but the infrequent Update Packs and lack of security updates were just a show stopper for me. Plus deminting will reduce on funky behavior and breakages in general. I did keep and use the mint-x-icons deb and petra backgrounds due to nostalgia. Overall it seems snappier and I was able to cut a lot of the fat but the one thing I do miss the most is Mint Update. Gnome-packagekit works, but as far as I can tell you have to check for updates yourself instead of having a tray icon quickly show updates which I miss. Overall the transition took some time but wasn't so bad. Packages not available in Debian (besides some of Cinnamon) that you will have to get yourself include firmware-linux-nonfree, playonlinux and ttf-mscorefonts-installer. If you do make the transition I recommend backing up your entire old /etc directory. Just letting people know you can pretty much jump directly to Debian testing with minimal effort or loss of functionality now.

deb [trusted=yes] http://maxy.com.ar/debian/ experimental main

[Monsta]

Packages not available in Debian (besides some of Cinnamon) that you will have to get yourself include firmware-linux-nonfree, playonlinux and ttf-mscorefonts-installer.

Not available?

firmware-linux-nonfree (section: non-free)
playonlinux (section: contrib)
ttf-mscorefonts-installer (section: contrib)

Don't let the Debian installer (which places only the "main" section in the sources list) fool you.
Add the missing "contrib" and "non-free" sections and have fun.
For even more fun there's deb-multimedia.org waiting for you.

[dumas777]

Packages not available in Debian (besides some of Cinnamon) that you will have to get yourself include firmware-linux-nonfree, playonlinux and ttf-mscorefonts-installer.

Not available?

firmware-linux-nonfree (section: non-free)
playonlinux (section: contrib)
ttf-mscorefonts-installer (section: contrib)

Don't let the Debian installer (which places only the "main" section in the sources list) fool you.
Add the missing "contrib" and "non-free" sections and have fun.
For even more fun there's deb-multimedia.org waiting for you.

Thanks. Yeah after I posted I was thinking those had to be there somewhere and that my apt sources were incomplete. Still I am grateful because I want as many packages as possible to at least be under some repo update preferably controlled directly by the Debian folks (which is why not big on deb-multimedia.org). Still have love for LMDE and it was great example of how to setup Debian testing which I have done but I do like a more rolling approach than LMDE offers. Still use Mint regular on all my other computers. The most desktop-centric user distro IMHO.

[abickerton]

Sadly not, that file was not present after installing stock version.

But it should be there in the fresh LMDE 201403 installation. Or did you mean anything else by "stock version"?

No I meant a fresh install of the 201403 MATE 64-bit LMDE iso.

MD5 6192a558df6db67a10bda4e34deef22e
201403 MATE 64-bit
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=100

As of a fresh install to a VM...

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drwxr-xr-x   6 root root  4096 Jul 29 21:25 .
drwxrwxr-x 147 root root 12288 Jul 29 21:26 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    35 Feb 28 00:53 apt.conf
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Feb 28 01:49 apt.conf.d
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  2144 May  5  2013 apt-file.conf
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Feb 28 01:47 preferences.d
-rw-r--r--   1 root root    23 Jul 29 21:25 sources.list
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Feb 28 00:53 sources.list.d
-rw-r--r--   1 root root 15303 Feb 28 01:40 trusted.gpg
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root  4096 Feb 28 01:40 trusted.gpg.d

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[2]test@test /etc/apt/preferences.d $ ls -al
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 28 01:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Jul 29 21:25 ..

[Monsta]

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[2]test@test /etc/apt/preferences.d $ ls -al
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 28 01:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Jul 29 21:25 ..

Should be:

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monsta@lmde ~ $ ls -al /etc/apt/preferences.d/
total 12
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Feb 28 04:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 6 root root 4096 Jul 30 11:24 ..
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  171 Feb 28 04:47 official-package-repositories.pref

[Monsta]

Virtualbox is back. Finally I can upgrade xorg in my Debian Testing VM.

[wayne128]

Today d-u on Debian Testing.
Suspense and hibernate buttons return to xfce too.

some 10 days after sid

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xfce can suspense and hibernate after d-u

Postby wayne128 » Sun Jul 20, 2014 6:56 pm
fully d-u

suspense and hibernate button returned :mrgreen: :)

[GeneC]

Has anyone else noticed an extremely slow re-boot? (about 2 minutes). Using 'restart' from logout gui.
I see nothing in logs, or any indications when launched from terminal.
Xfce desktop.

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xfce4-session-logout --reboot

PS
I notice exactly the same thing on a SID/Cinnamon 2.2 install. Its a fairly new occurance. Both used to re-boot (restart) in just seconds.
Both using systemd init.

PPS
Regular boot (from system turned OFF) is normal and fast, only issue is on re-boot from a running system..

[GeneBenson]

Hi GeneC,

Has anyone else noticed an extremely slow re-boot?

See my posts from Wed Jul 23, 2014 7:14 pm and Fri Jul 25, 2014 2:57 am . They're on the previous page. There is a link to a bug report in the first post which I believe is the problem. I get this on both a reboot and a shutdown.

[GeneC]

Hey GeneB..

OK. I remember the hibernate suspend issues, but missed the delay issue you mention. Been just using shutdown, then re-start. Damn computer restart button is way to near the floor--{dekstop-box}...
I don't have the issue with shutdown, though.

Thanks

[Monsta]

Oh, it looks like nvidia drivers are back.

[GeneBenson]

A couple of months ago there were a number of posts about CDs/DVDs not automounting. The solution was to add a line in /etc/rc.local or add a udev rule in /etc/udev/rules.d. Later an action was added to
debian-system-adjustments to create the udev rule. It turns out that this rule is no longer needed with systemd, which now does the kernel polling itself. You can remove the rule but I'm afraid mintsystem will just add it back at the next boot. I uninstalled mintsystem awhile ago so the udev rule is not added back. CDs/DVDs automount and play just fine.

Just thought you might want to know.

[GeneBenson]

After the bumpy ride I have been having with LMDE lately I decided to install pure Debian testing alongside LMDE and LM17, just to see how it was going with systemd. I installed the same software as on LMDE, without the Mint stuff of course. I have to admit it has been very smooth sailing. I've seen none of the issues I had with LMDE + systemd. I still hold my breath every time I shutdown/reboot, but until now I have not had to hold it for longer then 3 seconds.

Then came the announcement that LMDE would be tracking Debian stable and that there would be no more Update Packs. This means that Mint software will grow even more out of step with testing. I don't see a solution for my issues coming anytime soon, if at all.

Once LMDE starts tracking stable then this lagging behind will be even more of a problem for anyone tracking testing. At first LMDE will be on par with Jessie. However, with the Devs using stable as a basis, Mint software will lag behind testing more and more. With a new release of Debian coming about every 2 years that will be quite a gap.

With this in mind I have removed the LMDE partition and wait with anticipation for the next release of LMDE.

[GeneC]

Gene

Take a look at Sparky Linux. Much like the old LMDE used to be, much the same software. Tracks a straight Debian Testing. Its my main go-to distro now, (Their XFCE version). Their forum being very IN-active is the only negative I've found but its new and will grow in time..
http://sparkylinux.org/

I won't be using LMDE when it goes to stable.

[GeneBenson]

Gene

Take a look at Sparky Linux. Much like the old LMDE used to be, much the same software. Tracks a straight Debian Testing. Its my main go-to distro now, (Their XFCE version). Their forum being very IN-active is the only negative I've found but its new and will grow in time..
http://sparkylinux.org/

I won't be using LMDE when it goes to stable.

Hi GeneC,

Thanks for the tip. I just happen to have an empty partition just waiting to be used.

[Monsta]

A couple of months ago there were a number of posts about CDs/DVDs not automounting. The solution was to add a line in /etc/rc.local or add a udev rule in /etc/udev/rules.d. Later an action was added to
debian-system-adjustments to create the udev rule. It turns out that this rule is no longer needed with systemd, which now does the kernel polling itself.

So it does no harm, it's just redundant with systemd, right?

You can remove the rule but I'm afraid mintsystem will just add it back at the next boot.

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$ apt content debian-system-adjustments | grep 61
/etc/udev/rules.d/61-debian-system-adjustments-polling.rules

This doesn't look like something that will be brought back if you remove it.

[GeneBenson]

Hi Monsta,

So it does no harm, it's just redundant with systemd, right?

Correct.

This doesn't look like something that will be brought back if you remove it.

You can kill 2 birds with one stone here. If you move the file someplace safe and then reboot:
1. Check if mintsystem has created it again.
2. If not you can check that polling is still happening with these commands:

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cat /sys/module/block/parameters/events_dfl_poll_msecs
cat /sys/block/sr0/events_poll_msecs

If you get 0 or -1 from both of those commands, kernel polling may be disabled.

[Monsta]

My Debian Testing VM has mintsystem installed (for testing purposes) but doesn't have debian-system-adjustments:

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monsta@jessica:~$ apt-cache policy mintsystem debian-system-adjustments 
mintsystem:
  Installed: 7.9.1
  Candidate: 7.9.1
  Version table:
 *** 7.9.1 0
        500 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
debian-system-adjustments:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 2014.02.27.1
  Version table:
     2014.02.27.1 0
        500 http://packages.linuxmint.com/ debian/main amd64 Packages

Therefore the udev rule for kernel polling isn't there:

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monsta@jessica:~$ ls -l /etc/udev/rules.d/
total 0

That's because it belongs to debian-system-adjustments, not mintsystem.
The latter is just the "engine" for these adjustments. It scans certain directories and applies the adjustments it finds.

Now let's see what's in /sys...

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monsta@jessica:~$ cat /sys/module/block/parameters/events_dfl_poll_msecs
2000
monsta@jessica:~$ cat /sys/block/sr0/events_poll_msecs
2000

Looks like the polling is enabled

[kurotsugi]

IIRC that file was used to solve a bug in the kernel which introduced in UP before wheezy becomes stable. we didn't need that file anymore.

[Monsta]

IIRC that file was used to solve a bug in the kernel which introduced in UP before wheezy becomes stable. we didn't need that file anymore.

It's been added to fix some nasty bugs between UP7 and UP8.