Re: The sad demise of an etch.

hendrik@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
I run a dual-boot Debian system -- one partition is sarge; the other is
etch. The idea was that users would have a stable platform available if
they wished, for mission-critical work, but have access to (relatively)
recent software for the proce of a reboot.

This etch had been ailing for quite a long while now. The xfree ->
xorg upgrade went flawlessly, but a few weeks after that, after a
routine general upgrade (which upgraded xorg) X ceased to function
properly. It would crash when switching virtual consoles,
unpredictably. Everything fine as long as no one switched virtual
consoles, of course. Switching to a text console would work (before the
crash) but switching between X consoles or from text to an X console was
fraught with peril. There was a suspicion that the problem was set
up by logging out from X and switching to another console before the
original one had manages to present a new login screen -- then switching
back to the original X later would present you with a dead machine.
This suspicion, however, was nevre tested consistently.

The system was still somewhat usable. I occasionally upgraded it in
case this was a bug that would be fixed. IN any case, we still had
sarge as a fall-back in case of real trouble.

sometime later, etch could no longer start X successfully -- it ould
fail, unable to access the AGP device. The X log made it look as if
it was the actual AGP interface on the motherboard that was
inaccessible, not the ATI card I had plugged into it.

Upgradein udev seemed to cure this problem, but now X would
crash during startup.

Last Friday I performed another upgrade. Now etch won't boot at
all:

RAMDISK: Conplressed image found at block 0
input: AT Translated Set 2 keyboard as /calss/input/input0
invalid argument format (err=1)
VFS: Cannot open root device "304" or unknown-block(3, 4)
Pleas append a correct "root=" boot option
Kernel panic - not syncing: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on
unknown-block(3, 4)

what is your boot manager? did its configuration get corrupted? or maybe
you've got a bad block? I've seen this before on my system and can't
remember what it was.

does it hang there or drop you to busybox?



I am tempted to pronounce this etch installation dead and reinstall from
scratch. I'm also reluctant to do this, becase of Debian's reputation
as being the system that never needs to be reinstalled. Sarge, of
course, continues to soldier on without any problems at all (except for
application obsolescence -- but that's spec)

Or should I do something radical to get current software, such as
installing gentoo on the former etch partition?

ack! bite your tongue! ;-0

A


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