[SOLVED]After upgrading USB (and some other) devices do not work

[thanatos]

I'm not sure where to put this topic so I'm putting it here. Please move it to another, more suitable section if there is one.

I installed VL 7.1 Light on my old desktop PC yesterday. I have to say I'm amazed, it's quite more lightweight and faster than Lubuntu or Windows XP. Anyway, here is what the problem is.

The only thing I did after installing is upgrading the system. I opened Gslapt Package Manager (not sure is that it's name?) and clicked Update. After that, I clicked Mark All Upgrades and finally Upgrade. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I also removed all the packages in the excluded list from it (i.e. made excluded list empty) before upgrading, so I can have all my packages up to the latest version.

Everything worked fine until I powered off the PC. When I turned the PC back on, I couldn't move the mouse nor type anything with the keyboard (both mouse and keyboard are USB) so I couldn't even log in. I have two kernels (3.18.16 and 3.18.44) but switching them doesn't help. Luckily, TUI versions of both kernels do work (TUI variants of their GRUB entries, to be precise).

I chose Linux 3.18.44 TUI and logged in as root. The keyboard in TUI version does work (obviously, since how else could I log in?) but I wanted to check the mouse. I executed startx and X started. I tried moving my mouse and some keyboard shortcuts but nothing happened. I had to use the power button to shutdown the computer. Tried the same thing with 3.18.16 TUI but it was completely same.

Then I decided to try some other USB devices (the only one I have is flash drive, so that's the only one I could try). I plugged in the flash drive in the port and executed lsblk. It wasn't detected. Then I tried lsusb but that returned:
unable to initialize libusb: -99

I also noticed that my friend left his PS/2 keyboard, so I decided to try it too. The same happened as with the USB one: works in TUI but not in GUI.
So... what can I do to further troubleshoot and maybe fix this problem? Is it possible to easily downgrade packages? I know that Arch (I use Arch, btw ) stores previous versions of packages in /var/cache/pacman/pkg/, so when I want to downgrade I go there and run pacman -S package-to-downgrade.pkg.tar.xz If Slackware (since VL is based on Slackware) has something similar I can just go there and run upgradepkg * since I upgraded only once so the all packages in that directory must be the previous versions of the current upgraded packages (of whom the one or more is causing me problems).

Any help is appreciated!!!
PS: Why is there an error "Sorry, you are not allowed to post external links." if I include code tags in my post? Is that normal?

[nightflier]

Hi thanatos, and welcome.

First of all, VL 7.1 is seriously out of date. You should use 7.2.
32-bit downloads here: http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-7.2/iso-release/ and 64-bit here: http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/VL64-7.2/iso-release/

Package management is not like how it is on Arch. There are no packages included in a hard drive install, but you can find all of them on the install disc.

New packages installed through gslapt or slapt-get get downloaded to /home/ftp/ and you can indeed use installpkg or upgradepkg on those. Downgrades would require first removepkg, then installpkg.

Posting of external links is blocked until you have made a few posts, it is a spam prevention measure.

[thanatos]

Hi thanatos, and welcome.

Hi to you too and thanks for replying .

First of all, VL 7.1 is seriously out of date. You should use 7.2.
32-bit downloads here:  and 64-bit here:

Ahhh... that's way I have so old kernels. I just went to official VectorLinux Download page (sorry, can't post link) and downloaded the latest ISO. Is there a reason why the latest release is to be found on another place instead of the official download page?

Package management is not like how it is on Arch. There are no packages included in a hard drive install, but you can find all of them on the install disc.
New packages installed through gslapt or slapt-get get downloaded to /home/ftp/ and you can indeed use installpkg or upgradepkg on those. Downgrades would require first removepkg, then installpkg.
Posting of external links is blocked until you have made a few posts, it is a spam prevention measure.

Ok. Got it. I'll install VL 7.2 immediately. If there are no similar issues on 7.2 I'll mark this as [SOLVED].

[roarde]

The upgrade problem on 7.1 probably had to do with removing the exclusion list. Kernel packages require separate handling, as the automated routines don't work well for them. Any other items on the list are configured at install time, and any re-install, including upgrade, is risky.

Put another way, nothing is on the exclusion list unless it must be there. For example, just prior to 7.2 Light's release we were able to change a couple of packages in such a way to allow them to use the normal upgrade routines and they were removed from the list.

There is a kernel upgrade available. Instructions can be found on this forum, or it'd be great to ask about that separately once 7.2 is installed and the regular upgrades are in. It's about time kernel upgrade info was posted again, but we'll probably require a nudge.

[thanatos]

The upgrade problem on 7.1 probably had to do with removing the exclusion list. Kernel packages require separate handling, as the automated routines don't work well for them. Any other items on the list are configured at install time, and any re-install, including upgrade, is risky.

Put another way, nothing is on the exclusion list unless it must be there. For example, just prior to 7.2 Light's release we were able to change a couple of packages in such a way to allow them to use the normal upgrade routines and they were removed from the list.

There is a kernel upgrade available. Instructions can be found on this forum, or it'd be great to ask about that separately once 7.2 is installed and the regular upgrades are in. It's about time kernel upgrade info was posted again, but we'll probably require a nudge.

Yes, it seems that you're right. I did the very same thing on 7.2 and I have the same problem. Nevermind, I'll reinstall again and do "normal" upgrade. Then I'll check/ask how to update the kernel.