Apt-get upgrade problems, AGAIN - GRRRR

[Cuddles]

This is really ticking me off, you do one apt-get upgrade, and "something" always gets messed up...

Last time it was XINE, now its LOGIN...

apt-get upgrade stated it was upgrading xdm, and a whole slew of other things, after it downloaded everything, xdm config screen popped up, stating it can't have two display servers running, I had to choose...

The choices were:
kde
xdm

Considering I have been, and have always used kde, I told it to use kde -=- xdm went through a lot of spewed messages, and some file changes, and when it completed, I was back to my root prompt.

Falling back to my old days in Windows, the sure test of any problems is always a reboot...

NOW -=- I get my debian login screen, but no matter what account I select, and enter the proper password for that account, it goes to a black screen, and then pops back up the debian login screen again...

I can't get into my system now...

Why does this always happen when I do a apt-get upgrade? Isn't that what you are "supposed" to do? I am "seriously" getting a "phobic" reaction to doing anything "upgrading" wise on my system here, at least as far as Linux is concerned.

How do I get back into my system?

what a majority of the packages, xdm included, versions were something like 3.0.3-2 or something like that...

Help, this is starting to become a "useless" OS, if you can't get things to run, or when you do, it crashes when you try and upgrade something.

Thanks in advance,
Cuddles

[Markus]

NOW -=- I get my debian login screen, but no matter what account I select, and enter the proper password for that account, it goes to a black screen, and then pops back up the debian login screen again...

Just to ask the obvious, did you choose kde3 at the login screen?

I noticed that when I upgraded and chose kdm instead of xdm, I still had to manually delete new xdm lines from the rc levels, go figure.

[rickenbacherus]

Why does this always happen when I do a apt-get upgrade? Isn't that what you are "supposed" to do?

For what it's worth, I almost never do apt-get upgrade. I'm not clear if you're getting the KDM login or not. If not simply do:

dpkg-reconfigure kdm

[dewd]

It happened to me also.

But it was kind of suicide anyway.

When I installed Knoppix 3.4 I was able to apt-get upgrade just fine. Two weeks later apt-get -s upgrade would show a huge list of upgrades. I knew something could break. It didn't complete. Then I tried apt-get dist-upgrade and that was it. KDE no longer had that beautiful menu (it was broken) But it was just the kind of push for me to try my home distro called Kurumin, which is based on Knoppix.

I am not going to apt-get upgrade very soon, as everything in my distro is translated to portuguese and I would not like to risk losing that and I want it to last a little longer too.

Bottom line is: apt-get upgrade coupled with the bleeding edge nature of Knoppix's packages is a rollercoaster. Truth be said ?

[A. Jorge Garcia]

I never apt-get upgrade anymore. I only apt-get update....

Regards,
AJG

[Cuddles]

Markus -=- Do I feel stupid - that was it - but I have always used <default> in that area, it never occurred to me that another display manager would change what a "default" setting would be - thanks.

Rickenbacherus -=- Thanks for the info - I'm going to have to write that down for future referance, in case "something" else happens in the future.

A. Jorge Garcia - Sounds good to me - but what do you do when your "not upgraded" numbers climb so high? I usually wait till I hit 300, now I think I am going to wait till I hit 500, before I do an apt-get upgrade. What do you do?

Thanks for the "stupid" persons mistake, and for the answers...
Oh, by the way, while I have a few people here, and we are on the subject... Considering that when I do an apt-get upgrade, I usually get about 1/3 of them "kept back", what do you do about those as well?????

Thanks,
Cuddles
[ apt-get upgrade is like schizophrenia for your computer ][/i]

[fingers99]

I don't use apt-get upgrade.

I run apt-get update and then upgrade anything I'm not happy with through Synaptic, carefully checking to see if anything else is likely to get blitzed in the process.

[Stephen]

Oh, by the way, while I have a few people here, and we are on the subject... Considering that when I do an apt-get upgrade, I usually get about 1/3 of them "kept back", what do you do about those as well?????

Thanks,
Cuddles
[ apt-get upgrade is like schizophrenia for your computer ][/i]

The best way I have found of doing it is this. Start with apt-cache show package for a package being held back see what it does and if you are not going to need it then apt-get -s --purge remove package note if it is going to remove half the system if so leave it alone, if it only going to remove a few packages use the show command on them see if you need them if not they go along with it. Keep repeating to you have only packages that you want/need upgraded. Then you would start with a single package from the list remaining and simulate an install if it installs then and another package from the list on the end of the simulated line keep adding until you find a package that wants an additional package that will not install you remove that from the line and install the ones that will. Then you get the package that would not install on a simulated install again and look at the packages it wants and add them to the line like this apt-get -s install package package2/unstable package3/unstable .... because it is usually a package from unstable it needs to install when it will install without errors do it then do an apt-get upgrade and sometimes all the packages that were being help up will install if there are leftovers then you repeat the process above until they will all install. Sometimes the /unstable will not work on the end of the package for the problem ones and you will need the exact version number to tell apt to use then you use apt-cache policy to find the number you need then add to it an example here if I wanted kopete for the KDE 3.2 I am running instead of the version from unstable it wants to install.

HappyTux:/home/stephen# apt-cache policy kopete
kopete:
  Installed: (none)
  Candidate: 0.7.4-2
  Version Table:
     4:3.2.0-0+cvs20040217+cm 0
        500 http://ftp.snt.utwente.nl unstable/ Packages
     4:3.2.0-0pre1v1 0
          1 http://ftp.debian.org ../project/experimental/main Packages
     0.7.4-2 0
        600 http://ftp2.de.debian.org unstable/main Packages
HappyTux:/home/stephen# apt-get -s install kopete
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
   kopete (0.7.4-2)
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 8 not upgraded.
Inst kopete (0.7.4-2 Debian:unstable)
Conf kopete (0.7.4-2 Debian:unstable)

HappyTux:/home/stephen# apt-get -s install kopete=4:3.2.0-0+cvs20040217+cm
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
   kopete (3.2.0-0+cvs20040217+cm)
   libgadu3 (1.4-2)
The following NEW packages will be installed:
   kopete (3.2.0-0+cvs20040217+cm)
   libgadu3 (1.4-2)
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Inst libgadu3 (1:1.4-2 Debian:testing)
Inst kopete (4:3.2.0-0+cvs20040217+cm ftp.snt.utwente.nl)
Conf libgadu3 (1:1.4-2 Debian:testing)
Conf kopete (4:3.2.0-0+cvs20040217+cm ftp.snt.utwente.nl)

So then your command for the install could be like this apt-get install package package=4.20-1 package2/unstable or all the extra packages can have the =1234 on them if needed. Once all your packages have been installed with none being held back you done obvisouly and the headache of seeing all them packages not upgraded will be gone, your upgades depending on how often you do them (say every few days) should be minor with only a few packages being installed at once.

Something you may want to make your life with apt easier is add some aliases if you have already not done so to your /root/.bashrc like these I use.

# Some aliases added by me for convience
alias agi="apt-get install"
alias agis="apt-get -s install"
alias agit="apt-get install -t unstable"
alias agist="apt-get install -s -t unstable"
alias acp="apt-cache policy"
alias acs="apt-cache search"
alias acsh="apt-cache show"
alias acsp="apt-cache showpkg"
alias agr="apt-get remove --purge"
alias agrs="apt-get -s remove"
alias agu="apt-get upgrade"
alias agus="apt-get -s upgrade"
alias agd="apt-get dist-upgrade"
alias agds="apt-get -s dist-upgrade"
alias ag="apt-get update"
alias asv="apt-show-versions"
alias asva="apt-show-versions -a"
alias dpg="dpkg -l | grep"
alias dpp="dpkg -p"
alias dpl="dpkg -L"
alias dks="dpkg -S"
alias dpgc="COLUMNS=200 dpkg -l | grep"
alias ds="dselect update"

Then on the command to simulate an install I only have to type this you of course can call them whatever you want but it is usually best to type the alias in the shell first and make sure you get a command not found error to make sure you are not going to be using another program's name.

HappyTux:/home/stephen# agis kopete
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
   kopete (0.7.4-2)
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 8 not upgraded.
Inst kopete (0.7.4-2 Debian:unstable)
Conf kopete (0.7.4-2 Debian:unstable)

It saves typos and all kinds of typing you would have to do, in the shell when you added the aliases use source /root/.bashrc the first time after adding them to re-read the .bashrc every other time when you login they will be available.

[A. Jorge Garcia]

Well, what I do is try out the latest ISO each month. When I get an ISO I like (not the first ISO in a new series which tends to be buggy), then I decide if I want to reinstall my hdds.

After a reinstall, then I do apt-get update until a new reinstall. I'll reinstall my clients 2-4 times a year and my server once or twice. Am I missing much do this and not using apt-get upgrade?

TIA,
AJG

[Markus]

Cuddles, don't worry!
When it happened to me, I tried about four times to log in, rebooted and tried a couple of times again before selecting kde3 just for the hell of it

I suppose dewd is right about apt breaking things now and then being the price to pay for running something called unstable.
I do an upgrade about twice a month and more often than not something breaks or at the least tries to.
Never seem to get the amount of packages held back to climb over ca. 80 though.