Re: Can't upgrade to xserver-xorg, help!

Okay Emre,

I think you need to make a judgement call here. You've got some etch
level packages, some sid level packages and I don't know what else
because I stopped at that point. You've already moved some important
packages (libc6) up to sid, but are running a pre-etch kernel. The
decision you need to make is: do you want to try to downgrade these
packages and get a stable system or do you want to go ahead and push
you're way up to sid?

If it was me, I'd just push up to sid, but that's what I run
anyway. However, you've allowed you sid system to break pretty badly
already, are you willing to do the work to maintain a sid system?
(that's another discussion that we can have later).

more comments below.

On Tue, Oct 16, 2007 at 09:45:38AM +0300, Emre Sevinc wrote:

# uname -a
Linux debian 2.6.11-1-686 #1 Mon Jun 20 22:00:38 MDT 2005 i686 GNU/Linux

this is a pre-etch release kernel.


...

# apt-get -s dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
gsfonts-x11: Depends: xutils (>= 4.1.0-12) but it is not installed
libc6-dev: Depends: libc6 (= 2.3.6-7) but 2.6.1-5 is installed
^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^
this is the line that points to a *very* mixed system.

libfs6: Depends: x11-common but it is not installed
libgksu1.2-0: Depends: xbase-clients but it is not installed
libgksuui1.0-0: Depends: xbase-clients but it is not installed
libice-dev: Depends: libice6 (= 4.3.0.dfsg.1-7) but 2:1.0.4-1 is installed
libice6: Depends: x11-common but it is not installed
libx11-6: Depends: xfree86-common (> 4.3.0) but it is not
installable

I see now why you wanted to upgrade to xorg, so you're running some
sarge packages too, probably.
...


# dpkg -l linux-image\*
No packages found matching linux-image*.


the names of the kernels changed between sarge and etch. They are now
called linux-image-2.6.foo


# dpkg -l | grep kernel-image
ii kernel-image-2.4.18 fm4.0 Linux kernel binary image for version 2.4.18.
ii kernel-image-2.6.11-1-686 2.6.11-7 Linux kernel image for version 2.6.11 on PPro/Celeron/PII/PIII/P4.

I'm curious to know why it is picking a k7 kernel for you. If you
want, you could run

aptitude why linux-image-2.6.18-5-k7

and see what it says.

So here is what *I* would do to move up to sid: (this is all chopped
up because i'm making it up on the fly...)

First first, make a good backup of critical files. Its possible this
will just break your system more in the process of fixing it.

first first and quarter: get yourself an install disk in case it goes
totally wrong.

First first and a half: what are you booting with? grub or lilo? If
grub, great the rest should be easy. If lilo, you'll need to pay
attention to lilo notes below.

First, change sources.list to point to sid.

apt-get update && apt-get install linux-image-2.6-686

this will get you a linux-image meta-package that always points to the
latest 2.6 kernel for your architecture. This will give you regular
kernel updates as they occur in sid. This install will also probably
pull in some more sid packages and *may* produce some scary stuff. If
you want to, post up what it wants to do before you actually do it and
we'll look it over for you.

Once that kernel is installed,(lilo note: make *sure* lilo is pointing
to the new kernel *and* the currently working kernel, otherwise you're
screwed) reboot into that kernel and see what happens. If it works
then move ahead. If not, report back with details.

Then *I* would just dive in with

apt-get dist-upgrade

and see what happens. I would take notes of what major packages get
removed or broken as a result an eye towards fixing them when
done. Note that this is not for the faint of heart but it will work
out in the end.

I think this will more or less work because you've already got some
important stuff (libc6) up at sid.

It may take several rounds of dist-upgrade to get is all done *and*
its very likely that X will break in the process. We can fix that once
its all done. Also note that this may take a couple days even if its
going well... be prepared to have your system down for that time.

If you decide that you don't want to push up to sid, you've got soem
work cut out for you as you'll have to manually install packages with
dpkg.

good luck and keep us posted.

A

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