LMDE BREAKAGES - tracking TESTING

[sgosnell]

I have my repos pointed to Sid, and the Liquorix 2.6.37 kernel. I did a dist-upgrade today, and now I can't boot normally. I get to the login screen, and the entire system hangs. Nothing responds, not a mouse, touchpad, nor the keyboard. It requires holding the power button to shut down. It's the same with all installed kernels. I can boot into recovery mode as root, and run startx and get a desktop as root. Networking doesn't work at all, though. I can't boot normally at all, but X does run as root, but not normally.

Well, this is weird. I got a normal desktop by running "shutdown now" from the recovery console, then Ctrl-D when prompted. Instead of shutting down, it went to the normal login screen and everything worked. Subsequent reboots give the same results - it hangs with a normal boot, but I can boot to a root recovery console, run "shutdown now", use Ctrl-D when prompted, and get a normal X session, with the standard logon screen working fine. Any ideas?

[clem]

viking: It actually uses Synaptic to perform the upgrade. If additional packages get installed/removed, the synaptic dialog shows you the detail of the operations before proceeding. It's basically the same as in Synaptic itself.

tjweaver: Can you give me more information about this? A screenshot? It's not an error, it's basically a warning. Is it in the window itself? Or in the terminal? Does it stop mintupdate from working successfully? Does mintupdate show an error icon in the system tray? Let me know.

ciaW: Yes, it basically removes packages now. So make sure you read the summary dialog before proceeding towards complicated updates. Note that what happened with VLC isn't a problem with mintupdate, but with the packaging itself... and that needs fixing in Debian and a solution brought by snapshoting the repositories.

[viking777]

I have my repos pointed to Sid, and the Liquorix 2.6.37 kernel

Nothing to do with LMDE then. Probably best posted under 'Other Distributions'

Still, not wanting to be too negative, does it have anything to do with this bug:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 60#p398542

[viking777]

by clem on Sat Mar 26, 2011 10:17 am
viking: It actually uses Synaptic to perform the upgrade. If additional packages get installed/removed, the synaptic dialog shows you the detail of the operations before proceeding. It's basically the same as in Synaptic itself.

Well if that is what it is supposed to do I am sorry to say it isn't working!

I updated 5 minutes ago. First simulating with Synaptic and then updating with Mintupdate. Synaptic warned me that an additional package would be installed, and the history still tells me this:

Installed the following packages:
libdb5.1 (5.1.25-1)

Mintupdate lumped libdb5.1 in with the other updates (it is not an update it is a new package) both during the install sequence and in the subsequent 'history'. It gave no warning that an additional package would be installed and it is therefore pretty well impossible to tell from Mintupdate that this has been done. It was not at all critical in this case, but in the case of the recent 'kexec-tools' incident it was very important to my troubleshooting efforts to know that kexec-tools was a new package. The package removal case is of course even more critical eg the vlc incident.

[clem]

libdb5.1 shoud appear in mintupdate in the list itself, with "None" as the "Old version".

[viking777]

libdb5.1 shoud appear in mintupdate in the list itself, with "None" as the "Old version".

Yes is does.

If you think that is enough, there is nothing else to say I guess.

Thanks for replying anyway.

[zerozero]

.... What's coming next is an alteration of mintupdate that is specific to Debian. We'll snapshot the Debian repositories and "open the tap" at regular intervals (monthly for instance). Users will be upgrading to a snapshot we're familiar with...
Clem.

clem,
-does this mean that LMDE will track Debian CUT for updates?
-and how will be handle the source.list change if the previous question is yes?

Thanks for looking into LMDE's MU and as a note to self i'm going to start using it now daily to test it.

[clem]

No, it should follow our own repositories. Eventually this means people would be able to choose to follow Testing or the new repositories we provide for them (which basically snapshot Testing).

[misGnomer]

So what's the deal with kexec-tools? It was recently introduced and appears to cause booting problems (for some)?

I have it installed but haven't rebooted recently (I reboot mostly/only for new kernels). Should I remove or pin it? What's the "average user case" for that package?


[... and we have a winner: Thanks sidneyk]

[sidneyk]

So what's the deal with kexec-tools? It was recently introduced and appears to cause booting problems (for some)?

I have it installed but haven't rebooted recently (I reboot mostly/only for new kernels). Should I remove or pin it? What's the "average user case" for that package?

If you are dual or multi-booting with other OSs then you can run this command:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure kexec-tools
and a window will come up asking if kexec should handle reboots. Answer no and you'll be able to get back to your grub menu when you do reboot. The kexec package will still be installed in case you want to use it at some point, but it won't frustrate you trying to figure out what's going on. Basically, kexec lets you warm reboot into a new kernel instead of going through a complete reboot back to the grub menu for testing purposes. The only way I was able to get back to grub was to shutdown and then restart my computer until I ran the command above to reconfigure kexec-tools.

[sgosnell]

Nothing to do with LMDE then. Probably best posted under 'Other Distributions'

Still, not wanting to be too negative, does it have anything to do with this bug:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 60#p398542

I'm not sure if it has to do with LMDE or not, but simply having the Sid repos doesn't automatically mean it doesn't. The kernel has nothing to do with it, because I get the same with the stock kernel. The kexec bug has nothing to do with it. Different symptoms entirely, and purging kexec-tools has no effect. I might as well try removing the ~.linuxmint folder and see if anything changes. That has been suggested elsewhere.

Edit: No, that didn't help. Same hang with normal boot, but going through the console gives a different hang. The mouse still works, but I can't enter a password, and had to kill with the power button again. Restoring .linuxmint gives the same symptoms as before. I'm thinking there is something in .linuxmint causing the problem, but I still haven't found it.

In ~/.linuxmint/mintWelcome, there is a zero-byte file named norun.flag. It's dated last November, about the time of the original install. Anybody know what it does?

[kmb42vt]

Issue with new version of Mint Update Manager.

After installing the new version of the Update Manager I now get this error at the bottom of the window when I hit the refresh button:

/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/checkAPT.py:70: DeprecationWarning: Deprecated, please use 'get_changes()' instead
changes = cache.getChanges()

I don't get any kind of error messages when hitting the reload button in Synaptic. Just in the update manager.

Now that's strange. I'm not seeing anything like you describe but checking the file in question (line 70) the deprecated code: "changes = cache.getChanges" is the one that's used not "get_changes()" as stated in the error you're seeing. Why I'm not seeing the same error displayed I'm not sure. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get a verbose output when I start mintupdate via the terminal for some reason.

[kmb42vt]

After today's updates I've noticed that during boot up process (watching the text) that "Process accounting" fails to "turn on". Likewise when restarting or shutting down LMDE "Process accounting" fails to "turn off". Even though I can't pause the boot up or shutting down process the error is hard to miss since a big red FAIL is appended to "Turning on process accounting" and "turning off process accounting". The shutdown error also shows that the error (I think as it goes by fairly quickly then disappears) has been logged to "/var/log/account/pacct" but the "pacct" file is empty. The system seems to operating normally otherwise.

Could someone please take a look at their LMDE boot up and shutdown/restart text as it scrolls by and see if they can confirm this? I'd like to know if this is an isolated incident or not. Thanks!

[Lolo Uila]

Issue with new version of Mint Update Manager.

After installing the new version of the Update Manager I now get this error at the bottom of the window when I hit the refresh button:

/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/checkAPT.py:70: DeprecationWarning: Deprecated, please use 'get_changes()' instead
changes = cache.getChanges()

I don't get any kind of error messages when hitting the reload button in Synaptic. Just in the update manager.

I'm not having that problem here. Mint Update reloads fine for me.

[craig10x]

Issue with new version of Mint Update Manager.

After installing the new version of the Update Manager I now get this error at the bottom of the window when I hit the refresh button:

/usr/lib/linuxmint/mintUpdate/checkAPT.py:70: DeprecationWarning: Deprecated, please use 'get_changes()' instead
changes = cache.getChanges()

I don't get any kind of error messages when hitting the reload button in Synaptic. Just in the update manager.

I'm not having that problem here. Mint Update reloads fine for me.

And i only got it once...just when it installed the new mint-updater...as soon as i rebooted and refreshed my Mint Updater it no longer did it...

And Clem, i like the idea of being able to choose between debian testing or mint's "snapshots" of debian testing....sounds like the latter would be a safer way to avoid breakages and yet still get all the newest software, bug fixes, security updates, etc...just a little bit slower...but if it would add "peace of mind" it would be very welcome

Also, i hope you will be able to expand the options of the LMDE installer to include the "auto-install" methods included in the main edition...
in case i ever have to re-install LMDE, it would be most welcome...And also have the touchpad tap on by default when installing...I know that was a bit off topic but just wanted to throw that in

[tjweaver]

viking: It actually uses Synaptic to perform the upgrade. If additional packages get installed/removed, the synaptic dialog shows you the detail of the operations before proceeding. It's basically the same as in Synaptic itself.

tjweaver: Can you give me more information about this? A screenshot? It's not an error, it's basically a warning. Is it in the window itself? Or in the terminal? Does it stop mintupdate from working successfully? Does mintupdate show an error icon in the system tray? Let me know.

ciaW: Yes, it basically removes packages now. So make sure you read the summary dialog before proceeding towards complicated updates. Note that what happened with VLC isn't a problem with mintupdate, but with the packaging itself... and that needs fixing in Debian and a solution brought by snapshoting the repositories.

After a reboot this error message has gone away and I can refresh normally again.

[Jaime Frontero]

Saayyyy... I like the new Mint Updater. Slick work.

But - just as a general request from someone who... ummm... 'frequently' installs Mint for himself and others (5 Windows users converted since last year) - don't you think it's about time for a new LMDE iso-image?

I mean, the 'current' one (December? ...that's 80 years in computer-land) needs over 720 updates... that's a lot of terminal time. And there's still a couple of things that'll bite you if you're not careful (like kexec-tools...).

How 'bout it?

[mads]

Saayyyy... I like the new Mint Updater. Slick work.

But - just as a general request from someone who... ummm... 'frequently' installs Mint for himself and others (5 Windows users converted since last year) - don't you think it's about time for a new LMDE iso-image?

I mean, the 'current' one (December? ...that's 80 years in computer-land) needs over 720 updates... that's a lot of terminal time. And there's still a couple of things that'll bite you if you're not careful (like kexec-tools...).

How 'bout it?

There is a section in the forums called Suggestions & New Ideas. This thread is about LMDE breakages.

[clem]

Just a quick update... I'm still working on mintUpdate and adding a little dialog that will pop up whenever the selected updates trigger the installation or removal or packages. The dialog will show you the list of packages added/removed.

[kruijf]

Good work Clem.