[SOLVED] upgrade fails when stopping fancontrol

[TomRoche]

summary: upgrading LMDE1 -> LMDE2 hangs at

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Setting up fancontrol (1:3.3.5-2) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/init.d/fancontrol ...
[ ok ] Stopping fan speed regulator: fancontrol.

after long run. How best to proceed?

details:

I'm upgrading a 7-year-old 64-bit Clevo/System76 laptop from LMDE1/UP8 to LMDE2 following Clem's directions, except I `s/apt/aptitude/g`. The first four steps went fairly normally, but step 5 (the actual package upgrade :-) has been problematic.

My first run of `sudo aptitude full-upgrade` ended after fetching packages, with the following lines:

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Get: 2051 http://http.debian.net/debian/ jessie/main user-setup all 1.61 [196 kB]
Fetched 1,816 MB in 17min 38s (1,715 kB/s)
E: This installation run will require temporarily removing the essential package python:amd64 due to a Conflicts/Pre-Depends loop. This is often bad, but if you really want to do it, activate the APT::Force-LoopBreak option.
E: Internal Error, Could not early remove python:amd64 (2)

So I started a second run with `sudo aptitude -o APT::Force-LoopBreak=true full-upgrade`. I left it running overnight, checking back periodically to OK overwriting `/etc/*` files with package-maintainer's versions. This morning I checked the box ~0900 and found

1. only GUI application running was `gnome-terminal`, with the upgrade running in a single tab. This was working as intended, since I closed all other apps, and all but one `gnome-terminal` tab, before starting the upgrade.
2. desktop environment (DE)=Cinnamon (also as intended)
3. mouse was non-responsive: swiping the touchpad produced no movement
4. keyboard appeared non-responsive (but more on that below)
5. internal fan was running apparently full-speed (certainly as loud as I've ever heard it)
6. console spew ended with the following 3 lines:

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Setting up fancontrol (1:3.3.5-2) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/init.d/fancontrol ...
[ ok ] Stopping fan speed regulator: fancontrol.

I left it running in hope the upgrade would recover, but as of 1600 nothing had changed, so I attempted to kill the job. The following all failed:

1. invoking shutdown via Cinnamon menu (neither mouse movement nor pressing Super key produced any change)
2. C-c/Ctrl-c in the terminal tab (nothing changed in the GUI)
3. A-F2/Alt-F2 to try to open another terminal and run `sudo shutdown -Ph now`
4. C-A-F1 to goto tty1 and run `sudo shutdown -Ph now`

The good news is, the box did reboot after `A-SysRq-[REISUB]`, though only to tty1. So obviously the upgrade is incomplete; how best to resume it, or to debug the current situation before resuming?

Two alternatives come to mind:

1. just boot to tty1 and repeat the upgrade command. Unfortunately this could be very-long-running before failing again, so I'd like to prevent the previous problem from recurring.
2. I recorded the packages that the previous/broken `aptitude full-upgrade` wanted to {add, remove, upgrade} here, and note that package=`fancontrol` is one that `aptitude` wanted to upgrade. So I'm thinking I could instead
   1. create a list of packages to remove (from those listed in the previous upgrade)
   2. add `fancontrol` to that list
   3. run `sudo aptitude remove
      • ` from tty1
      • create a list of packages to add and upgrade (from those listed in the previous upgrade)
      • delete `fancontrol` from that list
      • run `sudo aptitude install
        • ` from tty1
        • rerun `sudo aptitude full-upgrade` from tty1 (hoping that cleans up any remaining upgrade work, and does not try to reinstall package=`fancontrol`
      Or is there some other alternative I should consider instead? Is there some other information I should obtain, or debugging I should do, before proceeding?

[TomRoche]

1. I recorded the packages that the previous/broken `aptitude full-upgrade` wanted to {add, remove, upgrade} here, and note that package=`fancontrol` is one that `aptitude` wanted to upgrade. So I'm thinking I could instead
   1. create a list of packages to remove (from those listed in the previous upgrade)
   2. add `fancontrol` to that list
   3. run `sudo aptitude remove
      • ` from tty1
      • create a list of packages to add and upgrade (from those listed in the previous upgrade)
      • delete `fancontrol` from that list
      • run `sudo aptitude install
        • ` from tty1
        • rerun `sudo aptitude full-upgrade` from tty1 (hoping that cleans up any remaining upgrade work, and does not try to reinstall package=`fancontrol`

I did that, and then did `sudo aptitude install mint-meta-debian-mate`, and now life is almost good :-)