Mint Snapshot feature & accesable in recovery mode !!

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phill1978

Mint Snapshot feature & accesable in recovery mode !!

Post by phill1978 »

Dear mint team,

At the moment I am trying REALLY :twisted: hard not to walk away from Linux Mint forever and tell others i know to stick to windows or try ubuntu.

2 Years.
4 incidents
4 updates that created the incidents

4 times = MESA UPDATES BROKE THE ENTIRE DESKTOP !!

IF ITS SUCH A BIG GAME CHANGER, THEN WHY PLACE IT IN THE EASY UPDATE MENU AND GIVE IT A LEVEL 3 ??? :x

MY desktop is totaled, again. I tried to fix it in recovery but only made it worse (if that was even possible such was the cluster rainbows)

Now my suggestion.. to save Linux users from this continuing shit storm is that there is a system snapshot before EVERY update and that it be dated. So when Mesa breaks things (and it will) you can go into recovery and type: 'show snapshot' 'wed-06-2013 ' 'restore'

You can get back into your desktop!!!

Just as a side note some information about my system:

AMD 1055T
4GB RAM
AMD HD 5850 running 13.4 catalyst driver (tried opensource but it had awful game performance and you know STEAM is now on Linux so pretty much anyone who wants to game on Linux uses the official driver now)


So my recommendation.. rollback / snapshot be integrated into mint update.
DrHu

Re: Mint Snapshot feature & accesable in recovery mode !!

Post by DrHu »

Creating snapshots, images of the system, using an old installed kernel are all up to the user

No-one can be 100% sure that some random update to some application from some third party developer (open source or not) will not impact a user's customized system
--if we could guarantee that every user ran exactly the same desktop and the same applications and the same appeartance items and the same profiles settings: then we might be able to make some type of guarentee
But, I am 100% sure that neither Microsoft nor Apple, nor Android can offer that, eevn that they control their platforms much more tightly..
--whether xbox, ps2 or Wii game device: I don't think those vendors can guarantee it in the style you indicate

Rsync method(s)..
http://www.mikerubel.org/computers/rsync_snapshots/

If you were using a VM session, your snapshot of the OS would be available.
https://www.vmware.com/support/ws4/doc/ ... ot_ws.html

If you were using LVM (logical Volume Manager(s))..
https://oracleonlinux.wordpress.com/201 ... rk-part-1/

Finaly, and possibly the biggest problem, a snapshot process will also depend on user's disk partition arrangement
--So to be clear: Linux gives you the options to do as you wish, an no-one can give any 100% guarantee
phill1978

Re: Mint Snapshot feature & accesable in recovery mode !!

Post by phill1978 »

DrHu wrote: No-one can be 100% sure that some random update to some application from some third party developer (open source or not) will not impact a user's customized system
--if we could guarantee that every user ran exactly the same desktop and the same applications and the same appeartance items and the same profiles settings: then we might be able to make some type of guarentee
thats just terrible. You have to be able to give guarantees if you are to stay in business and if you say your not a business then i would disagree given how much money is donated each month + sponsers. Im talking about a monthly, 6 monthly tick box (one of mints big selling features) that appears and you click update..

you are the 2nd biggest linux distro on the planet. take some responsibility for your success ?

There can be anything upto 90+ updates large and small, most I and almost everyone else will have no idea about if they are important and so you have to trust the mint team here. Should users never update their system for security, never get the latest flash, java, firefox,banshee, kernal, pulse.. etc.. updates just incase a MESA GL update breaks the entire desktop ???

I want you to understand something. The MESA updates break the desktop EVERY TIME. But it isn't just 1 file there are many and they are amongst updates where there can be 90+ other items.

Finally given the millions of variables on Linux here is something that is quite simple:


AMD GPU Official Driver
AMD GPU Open Source Driver
NVidia Official Driver
Intel Official Driver
Intel Open Source Driver

Look ^ All you need is one of the many Linux mint team testers to have the following hardware: An intel K CPU & 1 AMD card and 1 Nvidia card

That is it. Run your update testing those few variable (takes what a few hours of your time ???)

AMD GPU Official Driver
AMD GPU Open Source Driver
NVidia Official Driver
Intel Official Driver
Intel Open Source Driver

FYI i have seen on STEAM forums that people who have run mint on official Nvidia Drivers have also had this issue time and time again.

Look, If you only support the open source driver .. then come out and say it. Its that simple. Ubuntu only supports the open source driver (officially)

Then we have a huge group of users who can avoid the issues. You simply tell all your Nvidia and AMD power users that using their cards for decent 3D gaming on Linux mint is POINTLESS right now !!
Dyfi

Re: Mint Snapshot feature & accesable in recovery mode !!

Post by Dyfi »

The reasonable approach is to image backup before updating - and as previously mentioned, this is entirely the responsibility of the user. Also, install updates a few at a time - they do not have to be installed all in one go. A little time in thought and preparation is well spent.
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xenopeek
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Re: Mint Snapshot feature & accesable in recovery mode !!

Post by xenopeek »

phill1978 wrote:AMD GPU Official Driver
AMD GPU Open Source Driver
NVidia Official Driver
Intel Official Driver
Intel Open Source Driver

Look ^ All you need is one of the many Linux mint team testers to have the following hardware: An intel K CPU & 1 AMD card and 1 Nvidia card
They do have that, as do many Linux Mint users. The forums aren't flooded with level 1/2/3 upgrades causing these problems that you have described, so it sounds like a more narrow problem than what can be solved by testing with "An intel K CPU & 1 AMD card and 1 Nvidia card".
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phill1978

Re: Mint Snapshot feature & accesable in recovery mode !!

Post by phill1978 »

Thanks for the replies :)

Well im calming down now Ive installed ubuntu, i don't wish to exaggerate but its awful !

I take the point that the MESA update can be 'de-selected' and also the point made that one update can be tried at a time, but if that update fails my desktop then even as a moderately technical user im going to struggle to restore. The mesa GL updates are more than 1 file, there usually scattered amongst 90 other individual updates and you shouldnt have to 'pick your way through'

I guess what I am trying to help with here suggest.. is that it is made easier for novice / moderate users. Of course people are going to update as soon as the shield icon has an 'exclamation mark!' pop up.. its kind of like a red rag to a bull. People have a culture of accepting forced updates and the mint update process although optional does shout it.

So, do we as novice / moderate users choose to NEVER update just incase a component of an update may fail ? or should be continue to run the risk ?

Just to clarify at this stage many people are 1 foot on Linux and 1 foot on Windows, its the cracks in linux's updates that often lead to instability and the feeling of putting both feet onto windows again.

So my suggestion stands: Option in update manager to snapshot driver position (as in a text document for the system to read when you command line restore)

I am your A-Typical moderate user who wants to stick to Linux.

Thanks
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xenopeek
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Re: Mint Snapshot feature & accesable in recovery mode !!

Post by xenopeek »

phill1978 wrote:So my suggestion stands: Option in update manager to snapshot driver position (as in a text document for the system to read when you command line restore)
Summarized like that, it is an excellent suggestion and you have my vote on this. You may want to edit your first post here, and strip away a bit of the emotions from it :wink:

What you are suggesting should be possible to implement with the Btrfs filesystem, which allows for taking of snapshots of a filesystem. Which you can then roll back to, compare with current filesystem for changes made, and so on. OpenSUSE has a nice front-end for that, called snapper: http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Snapper. I'm using that on another distro I have installed, and I can see something similar being adopted for rolling back upgrades.
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phill1978

Re: Mint Snapshot feature & accesable in recovery mode !!

Post by phill1978 »

xenopeek wrote:
phill1978 wrote:So my suggestion stands: Option in update manager to snapshot driver position (as in a text document for the system to read when you command line restore)
Summarized like that, it is an excellent suggestion and you have my vote on this. You may want to edit your first post here, and strip away a bit of the emotions from it :wink:

What you are suggesting should be possible to implement with the Btrfs filesystem, which allows for taking of snapshots of a filesystem. Which you can then roll back to, compare with current filesystem for changes made, and so on. OpenSUSE has a nice front-end for that, called snapper: http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Snapper. I'm using that on another distro I have installed, and I can see something similar being adopted for rolling back upgrades.
Thanks for the Vote :D

It cant be too hard to implement and it would add not only an air of professionalism ( a mature acceptance that Linux very regrettably breaks with updates occasionally and you lose everything) If the Mint team take this on board they will definitely save many users from nightmare broken desktops !

and if they do a damn good job they the 'safe mode / recovery mode' will have a script that runs " Your last snapshot was 21/06/2013 : Do you want to restore to previous time? Y/N: _"

This would keep people from binning linux and moving back to windows, all people want is a nice Saviour when things go wrong TBH, not hours of your night or weekend trying to fix things which shouldn't have broke in the first place.



BTW. . the emotion stays, I had spent many hours getting cinnamon right and all the other previous times getting the desktops set up.. after the updates i could not longer get ANYTHING working, totally stuffed ! This is the reason microsoft get really smug about Linux and its founded on instability of the environment brought on usually by rushed updates

Well keep the cutting edge, keep the updates.. but just give us all a chance to roll back
phill1978

Re: Mint Snapshot feature & accesable in recovery mode !!

Post by phill1978 »

thanks
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