recover after faulty dist-upgrade

[orangeli]

Hello
Did dist-upgrade yesterday and now get blank screen instead of kde
Hot to fix this?
Thank you! :oops:

[michaa7]

With the given info there is no fix and can't ever be.

That said, runing Debian/sid you should try very hard to get some basic understanding of what happens. In this case, when switching to X fails, there are very few componets involed. You should understand which they are and give *us* the respective info.

[devil]

...like: when was the last d-u before the one that failed?
As noone else reported anything the like, it must be an individual issue on your box.
were a lot of packages removed with the d-u?
Does

Code: [Select]

apt-get install kde-standard install anything?
If so, does KDE work after that?
If not:
What does

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apt-get -f installshow?

greetz
devil

[orangeli]

Thank you for your answers.
I've already reinstalled siduction.
This time along with another distribution to be on the safe side.

As it happened to me before, info on possible restore steps should be a sticky thread in the forum easily located!

[ayla]

hmm, I guess we should translate our wiki.

But for the moment google translate may help.

http://wiki.siduction.de/index.php?title=Sicherung_/home

EDIT:

I appended an -hopefully understandable- english Version to the above mentioned wiki.

greets
ayla

[michaa7]

...
I've already reinstalled siduction.
This time along with another distribution to be on the safe side...

So you have worked much, the problem is not understood, not solved but only circumvented.

Installing an other OS doesn't help to understand either.

Hint, hint, hint: If you d-u and your machine boots but fails to switch to X it is most likely kernel/grafics related. Seldomly it may be related to the  loginmanager (kdm, gdm, slim).

This is what you should be aware of and then provide the neccesary info (which grafics card, which driver, new kernel?) What exactly can you still see (blinking cursor left upper corne on blank black screen?). Can you still switch to konsole (ctrl-alt-F2).

This would be usefull info and a first step for walking a flat learning curve.

[ayla]

As it happened to me before, info on possible restore steps should be a sticky thread in the forum easily located!

I thought this is  a good idea because system breakage may happen from time to time on sid and as we have described a way to restore the system in our wiki, but useless for non german speaking people, I've tried to support this. My thought was a mod could make the link sticky and eventually someone will add another language...


Besides: providing the infos inxi gives and so on to getting help to restore the system without a new install of course is a good idea also.

greets
ayla

[orangeli]

Maybe graphic problem - lately desktop wallpaper was replaced with black background.
Maybe source list problem - when apt-get update got some error messages.
I'm a user since sidux but not an expert.
Now writing after format and fresh install
Hardware info:

Code: [Select]

System:    Host: siductionbox Kernel: 3.4-0.towo.1-siduction-amd64 x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.7.0)
           Desktop: KDE 4.8.3 (Qt 4.8.1) Distro: siduction 12.1 Desperado - kde - (201205212202)
Machine:   Mobo: DFI model: LP DK 790FXB-M3H5 version: 1.0 Bios: Phoenix version: 6.00 PG date: 07/06/2009
CPU:       Dual core AMD Athlon II X2 250 (-MCP-) cache: 2048 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4a svm) bmips: 12000
           Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 800.00 MHz
Graphics:  Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Cedar PRO [Radeon HD 5450] bus-ID: 01:00.0
           X.Org: 1.12.1.902 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1360x768@60.0hz
           GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 0x209) GLX Version: 2.1 Mesa 8.0.2 Direct Rendering: Yes
Network:   Card: Marvell 88E8056 PCI-E Gigabit Ethernet Controller driver: sky2 ver: 1.30 port: de00 bus-ID: 02:00.0
           IF: eth0 state: up speed: 100 Mbps duplex: full mac: 00:01:29:00:86:05
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 500.1GB (-) 1: model: ST3500418AS
Info:      Processes: 145 Uptime: 1 min Memory: 398.9/3960.5MB Runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 4.7.0 Client: Shell inxi: 1.7.36


[ayla]

So may be you want to add your sources.list's and the error messages also.

EDIT: You do not have the latest release installed, so may be you have the old repos in your sources.list.

Your siduction.list should look something like this, maybe different mirrors:

deb http://ftp.uni-stuttgart.de/siduction/base unstable main contrib non-free
deb ftp://ftp.spline.de/pub/siduction/fixes unstable main contrib non-free

[devil]

orangeli,
On IRc your problem would probably have been solved within minutes, no need to reinstall. I am sorry for the minutes spent trying to help you.

greetz
devil

[vilde]

I would like to comment two things about this.

One: Thanks ayla for translating recover the wiki text.

Two: I understand that in general it's better to try to repair an os that has broken someway but the fact that it's very easy and very quick to reinstall makes that also an option if something goes wrong. Special if, like me, sometimes I do a little experimental and not siduction installs it's not that bad to do a reinstall to get a clean and new os. I have no important work and or a lot of important files on my computers os disks, if I have they are already saved on other media than the os. To copy home or in my case only some maps from home, do a new install and reinstall the extra programs I want will not take more than half an hour.

But it's more sport to repair and if you do want to install you don't have to ask for help to repair, ok, I agree to that.

[orangeli]

orangeli,
On IRc your problem would probably have been solved within minutes, no need to reinstall. I am sorry for the minutes spent trying to help you.

greetz
devil

I tried IRC with no result.
Lost my patience and reinstalled.

Don't worry, I will not waste your time any more.
Just don't call yourself "siduction the community based OS".
Community my arse!

[dibl]

Just don't call yourself "siduction the community based OS".
Community my arse!

So it's only a community if it can meet your (apparently very short) idea of a speedy response?

The sad part of this story is, it's likely that your original problem was at least in part self-induced.  But due to the "solution" that you chose, nothing was learned by anyone.  So it's quite likely that you and/or other users will experience the same problem again, and again will not know how to fix it.

A real community learns by sharing information, so that all members can do better in the future, even if it takes a day or two to sort it.

[ayla]

A few thoughts about this thread:

After the last post of the threads opener: ok, thxby

But:
Shouldn't we all be a little more patient?
I, for myself, do not feel comfortable on IRC. I'm not the fastest communicator and this whole thing when there are more then one or two traces at the same time makes me ....

A second reason I like a forum more then IRC is that I can read and search it when I have the problem again (or any other). Solutions worked out on IRC are lost for the community in my eyes and supporters will have to give the solution eventually again and again. It's faster, of course, but thats all on advantage I can see.

So I do not see the minutes spended here wasted, and if I have some in reserve and think I can help I like to do so.


Greets
ayla

[devil]

I felt my time was wasted, because the threadstarter was too impatient, not because I think, forum is a waste of time compared to IRC.

greetz
devil