Dissapearing packages. The Scitzo Linux.

[stanz0]

Its unfortunate, but it seems that I will have to reinstall VL6 light. I say its unfortunate, because I made a promise to myself, that in pursuit of a greater knowledge of linux, I would always take the HARD way out (ie, learn and FIX what was borked) rather than just re-install the OS. You never learn anything, just taking the easy way out.  Its a theory that has proved much success:
On the 2/3 linux systems I own/run, I've managed to keep this self-pact,... but something unexplainable is happening now, to which I can fathom no explanation. This is my last attempt at keeping my resolution I suppose.


Disapearing Packages:


Why on earth, would de-installing the following packages (a) affect the following packages (b).
This is the million dollar question.

The packages uninstalled (a) were:
alsa-firmware
alsa-drivers
alsa-utils
alsa-tools
alsa-oss
alsa-lib
alsa-plugins.

The packages that mysteriously, and unexplainably dissapeared, (the ones I've noticed!) were:
firefox
man
manpages
icewm
icewm vl theme

a few xine packages also - but this even I could easier understand, but NOT the former few.



Would some brilliant Linux Guru, please give a hypothesis, on why the former packages, would be affected by the latter packages, considering they are not dependencies.

[stretchedthin]

I've got a feeling far more packages were removed than what you have shown here.  I have a copy of vl-light I installed from the live cd.  To recreate your experience I opened GSlapt and asked it to remove alsa-lib 1.0.18-i586-1vl60.  I then clicked 'Execute'.  The next window give the information of what is going to removed...it was telling me by just selecting alsa-lib~ that gslapt was going to remove 52 packages.

My experience is that GSlapt or Slapt-get is a poor way to remove packages.  You may want to just use removepkg /var/log/packages/nameofppackage.tlz, and remove the specific packages one at a time.

That said, I have to ask what motivated you to remove the alsa sound system in it's entirety

Now as far as repairing your system without a re-install, I may know a way, but I'll need to know first if you are using an install from the live cd or from the installer cd?  Also, I would need to know if you can still boot to the desktop or just to a terminal?

[stanz0]

I've got a feeling far more packages were removed than what you have shown here. 

I myself have this suspicion.

I have a copy of vl-light I installed from the live cd.  To recreate your experience I opened GSlapt and asked it to remove alsa-lib 1.0.18-i586-1vl60.  I then clicked 'Execute'.  The next window give the information of what is going to removed...it was telling me by just selecting alsa-lib~ that gslapt was going to remove 52 packages.

:O
So it is!...but..but, that wasnt so before lol.
Srlsly, unless I'm going mad, it didnt list that it was going to remove all those before.

But that ASIDE.
WHY, would removing alsa-lib require me to remove lynx, man, gnome mount for example??

It should resolve dependencies better than that.

My experience is that GSlapt or Slapt-get is a poor way to remove packages. 

It really seems to be the case.

That said, I have to ask what motivated you to remove the alsa sound system in it's entirety

Its the second I've done it actually, For nothing in the name of alsa was working. It complained about modules, and problem inserting them (on playing audio)  - saying they were for the wrong version.

(during compile, compiler make would point to Mod version "0.0.0" - random. And reinstalling kernel-headers / source didnt help.


So, I decided, and the recommendation of roarde, that I (again...) de-install/reinstall alsa. And sound, after perhaps 2 months, was restored.
By this time, I must admit I had reached frustration.

I can boot into GUI fine. And I installed from the installer disk.

[stretchedthin]

OK, I'm glad to hear this was an install via the installer cd and not the live cd.  It should make recovering your lost packages easier.
First to determine exactly what was removed in the terminal type the following...
nano /var/log/pkgtools
page down to the bottom and you will see the most resent activity of gslapt.

See what from the list you can reinstall via gslapt or slapt-get
Now it's very likely that you will not be able to reinstall everything from the package manager a number of your applications will only be available from the install disk.
There are only a limited number of packages that you can install directly with installpkg as root.  I did a quick search of the disk for tlz files and got the following...

Code:

VLToshiba://media/cdrom0
ken:$ find ./ -name "*.tlz"
./packages/driver/cups-1.3.9-i486-1_slack12.1.tlz
./packages/libs/jre-6u6-i586-3.tlz
./packages/net/chestnut-dialer-0.3.3-i586-1vl60.tlz
./packages/net/dillo-2.0-i586-1vl60.tlz
./packages/net/firefox-3.0.8-i586-1vl60.tlz
./packages/net/gftp-2.0.19-i586-1vl60.tlz
./packages/net/opera-9.64-i386-1vl60.tlz
./packages/net/pidgin-2.5.4-i586-1vl60.tlz
./packages/net/vlwifitools-1-noarch-1vl60.tlz
./packages/net/wicd-1.5.9-noarch-1vl60.tlz
./packages/office/gutenprint-5.0.2-i486-1.tlz
./packages/office/hplip-2.8.12-i586-2vl60.tlz
./packages/required/fontfix-1.1-noarch-2vl59.tlz
./packages/required/zxmisc-1-noarch-1vl60.tlz
./packages/x11/fox-1.6.34-i586-1vl60.tlz
./packages/x11/gdm-2.20.5-i586-1gsb.tlz
./packages/x11/kdm-small-3.5.10-i586-2vl60.tlz
./packages/x11/rxvt-unicode-9.06-i586-2vl60.tlz
./packages/x11/xfe-1.19.2-i586-1vl60.tlz
./veclinux/optional/dev.tlz
./veclinux/optional/icewm.tlz
./veclinux/optional/kernel-src.tlz
./veclinux/optional/siag-office.tlz
./veclinux/optional/windows-networking.tlz
./veclinux/optional/X11.tlz
./veclinux/required/veclinux.tlz
./veclinux/required/vlconfig2.tlz
./veclinux/required/vlconfig.tlz

If you are willing to be a guinea pig and want to try something a little adventurous you could install this package located on the install cd here...../veclinux/required/veclinux.tlz

It will reinstall the entire vl-light base configuration and directory tree, hundreds and hundreds of apps are included.  It should be installable with installpkg as root.  In the terminal (as root) cd to /media/cdrom (or what ever address your cdrom shows up in.) and
installpkg ./veclinux/required/veclinux.tlz
The risk would be it would downgrade any of the base utilities and apps you may have upgraded since installing it.

I was hoping they could be done one by one but it does not look like it is the case.