[SOLVED] Latest update rendered the system unusable

[murali]

I applied the latest update which had some xfce 4.10 upgrades along with others. I don't think there was any kernel upgrade and yet when i rebooted the machine it booted into a desktop but mouse was frozen, so can't use the system at all.

Does anyone else have the same problem and what can i do to fix it?

Machine specs - Lenovo R61, 2G RAM, Intel onboard graphics.

Thanks in advance.

[stretchedthin]

There were a number of new packages added late last night.  I'll do a test in virtualbox and see if I can isoloate. 
Note to other users please do not do a system wide update, until this can be tested.
Thanks.

[stretchedthin]

See if you can click and install xfce4-meta version 4.10.0.
Any new package that did not exist before in xfce4 version 4.8.0 will not install with the "Mark All Upgrades"
Since you don't have a mouse you may have better luck with the terminal as root user.
Try
slapt-get --install xfce4-meta
Reboot and let me know if that helped.

[stretchedthin]

Ok, I've  found the culprits that rendered the system unusable if you did a system wide upgrade and I have them removed.

Unfortunately, I don't have a solution for anyone effected other than a reinstall.

Some good came out of this, however, as I discovered some good techniques for testing new packages and there behaviour during a system wide upgrade.

I still don't encourage users to "Mark All Upgrades" and Execute, but as I work this testing technique into my regular maintainence routine, I think it will become a safer move to make in the future.

Ken

I will be working somethings back in over the next few days, that I took out trying to find the problem.  So if you find something missing, (like xfce4-4.10) it will be back in a few days.

[rbistolfi]

Boot to TUI, by selecting the proper entry from lilo. Then login as root and remove the offending packages with removepkg <pkgname>(hint: cd /var/log/packages; you can see what is installed by doing a ls there, tail /var/log/pktools is also usefull to see what did you install lately). Reinstall xfce-4.8 or your desktop of preference, or any other package you think is bad: slapt-get -i <pkgname>. The system is recoverable with some patience. Hint #2: use elinks or similar to browse for help in TI if you need to).

HTH, Rodrigo

PS: is Xfce-4.10 in extra repo ? :O

[murali]

I guess the only option left for me is to re-install  . When i logged in as root in cmd line, internet was not working, i edited /etc/rc.d/rc.inet1.conf to use dhcpcd and restarted the service but still didn't work. Apparently this file was changed due to the upgrade i had done earlier. I tried all possible options that i could think of, but couldn't get the net working.

If i boot with live cd and use chroot option, maybe i can recover, but the effort and time needed for that can be offset by reinstalling all over again.

Will a subsequent/future upgrade break things again or it should be ok going forward? Also can you please tell how to upgrade my kernel as well to the latest 3.3.x if it's available?

[stretchedthin]

It should be good going forward.  However, care should be taken not to do system wide upgrades with testing enabled.

[rbistolfi]

For updating kernel:

Navigate to http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-7.0/kernels and download kernel and kernel-modules packages. If you need it, you can get kernel-src as well. Be sure the version number is the same in all of them. login as root and run installpkg <pkgname> for all the packages.

HTH, Rodrigo