Update of 12-12-25 ruins the system?

[ruebe99]

To summarize:
-  currently, there is no solution available if your installation has been compromised
- there are many knowledgeable individuals who could potentially safeguard their own systems
- aside from waiting, there is no other solution at this time
true or wrong?
Cheers - ruebe99

[eriefisher]

Until xkb-data is fixed upstream there is nothing to do but wait. It currently does not have any effect on the system and apt is holding it back. With Sid this happens time to time. That's why it's called unstable.

[ro_sid]

Well, (for me) it takes too long for the Debian maintainers to fix this thing, which has an immense impact. I am really disappointed. Would someone try an "ab ovo" install of sid/unstable, without coming from a working ISO - like Siduction -, a reasonable X11 install is as good as impossible.

[T-ampfer]

Yes, it's a good idea to have a secundary Linux installed, with the most wantet progs, I am use as secundary debian (old)stable.

My personal way to updates/upgrades:

- looking for upgrade warnings here
- reboot the computer
- switch to a tty: press strg+alt+F3  (don't use a konsole/terminal under X!!!), or, if I'm on an other computer, I'm using ssh with screen

Code Select Expand

# systemctl isolate multi-user.target; apt update && apt -d full-upgrade
The -d in apt -d full-upgrade does only download the packiges but do not install them. (i use it in a script named mupgr.sh)
- take a look for the summery, if I'm not sure, I look to the details...
- okay:

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# apt full-upgrade
- not okay:

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# apt upgrade

hope it helps and please excuse my bad english

[eriefisher]

Currently there is no need to intervene with apt. If you apt dist-upgrade you will be presented with the list of packages to be upgraded. It will also tell you if there are new packages to be installed, if anything is to be removed and if there are any hold backs to prevent breakage.

[n4ai9i522]

Not sure if this is the same issue I'm having, I see in this thread that it started on the 15th, but I know that I have dist-upgraded then, and also dist-upgraded on the 16th, but I couldn't boot my intel graphics HD 620 laptop today on the 17th.
I also dist upgraded on the same schedule my good laptop with nvidia graphics in the same days, and it just works today, so this would point to an issue with the i915 driver.

A chatgpt session had me trying to install kernel 6.6, and to disable guc in grub, but nothing changes.
The only way to get a stable tty3 shell is by booting 6.17-11, and do Ctrl-Alt-F3 while there is a solitary blinking cursor where gdm should appear.
If I use any other kernel, or if I try the enable_guc=0 edit, the system will just freeze making it impossible to do stuff in tty3 or sometimes even access it at all.
Sometimes Ctrl-Alt-Del will work to reboot the system anyway, some other times I will have to keep the power button pressed to turn it off.

I couldn't install xserver-xorg to fallback on xfce and be able to access the system, because of a dependency issue ("blahblah is not going to be installed"), and I also have the xkb-data not being upgraded in both laptops.
Running Gnome wayland on both laptops.


I am now scared to try and reboot my good laptop for fear of having an unworkable system here too, and I kinda need this to work.

[lionel]

an easy fix is to reinstall version 2.42 that you can download from e.g. https://ubuntu.pkgs.org/25.04/ubuntu-main-amd64/xkb-data_2.42-1ubuntu1_all.deb.html
Then I used synaptic, locked the package version of the downgraded xkb-data(2.42.1) and then reinstall xorg and deleted packages.
it worked for me.

[n4ai9i522]

an easy fix is to reinstall version 2.42 that you can download from e.g. https://ubuntu.pkgs.org/25.04/ubuntu-main-amd64/xkb-data_2.42-1ubuntu1_all.deb.html
Then I used synaptic, locked the package version of the downgraded xkb-data(2.42.1) and then reinstall xorg and deleted packages.
it worked for me.

does this mean that the whole woe comes from the xkb-data package being held to an older version? I don't particularly recall any removals happening during dist-upgrade (except me autoremoving unneeded packages), and xkb-data is at version 2.42-1 which is the same you linked to

[unklarer]

an easy fix is to reinstall version 2.42 that you can download from e.g. https://ubuntu.pkgs.org/25.04/ubuntu-main-amd64/xkb-data_2.42-1ubuntu1_all.deb.html
Then I used synaptic, locked the package version of the downgraded xkb-data(2.42.1) and then reinstall xorg and deleted packages.
it worked for me.

This is sid(uction)!
I don't know why I should include Ubuntu packages here.   

[eriefisher]

Again, Siduction works fine with a held back package. You need to pay attention to what apt is telling you. You would have been notified that x11 plus was being removed and you said yes. You got what you asked for. There is no way I would install a Ubuntu package. You could be creating more problems than you started with.

[ruebe99]

The current situation is not a new one. This happens once a year and should not come as a surprise if you are running Sid. As a permanent fallback, I have been using a Tumbleweed (a rolling release, too) for years, and it works fine whenever needed. Nevertheless, Debian Sid is inherently risky but challenging. In the worst case, I might have to wait a couple of weeks to get back on track; that is Sid by nature.

My experience over the decades: always have a backup or alternate system (LTS, or even better, an alternative and non-Debian distribution) — we're talking about 20 to 30 GB of disk space here. It's wise to wait before you downgrade. Swapping your home directory from A to B is not that complicated. There may be some inconveniences, but no serious issues.

And in doubt, a simple apt update and apt upgrade (not dist-upgrade or full-upgrade) might help for a while.
cheers

[Teriarch]

Here is the problem:

Recent Debian package keyboard-configuration_1.244_all.deb depends on
Depends: [...] xkb-data (<< 2.42A)

We can easily fix the dependency to
Depends: [...] xkb-data (<< 2.46A)

The system now happily installs the offending package xkb-data_2.46-1_all.deb, but we
run into another very delicate problem: xkb-data_2.46-1_all.deb replaces former
directory /usr/share/X11/xkb by a symbolic link of the same name (pointing to
/usr/share/X11/xkeyboard-config-2), which contains all necessary config files.

But since the old directory already exists, the package manager fails to remove it
in favor of the new symbolic link of the same name (I think this is a bug of the package
manager) with severe consequences:

Sddm is still depending on Xorg in order to start the greeter, but Xorg cannot find its
configuration files in  /usr/share/X11/xkb, since the directory is empty as a consequence
of xkb-data's update and the missing symbolic link. So Xorg fails to start and therefore
the screen remains blank. Now that we know, here is the fix:

1) Modify the ../DEBIAN/control file of keyboard-configuration_1.244_all.deb
by the following lines:

Version: 1.244b
Depends: debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0, liblocale-gettext-perl, xkb-data (>= 2.42~), xkb-data (<< 2.46A)

Install the modified package and du to include the recent xkb-data_2.46-1_all.deb file.
Remove  /usr/share/X11/xkb:

$ sudo rmdir /usr/share/X11/xkb

Manually create the missing link:

$ cd  /usr/share/X11
$ sudo ln -s ../xkeyboard-config-2 /usr/share/X11/xkb

That does the trick.

[n4ai9i522]

Regarding my setups, I made a "mistake" by shutting down my good laptop with nvidia card when I got off it, but when I just turned it back on, yes it gave me a small stroke because the blank screen with cursor on top left stayed on for one too many seconds, yet at the end GDM greeted me.
This laptop is better specs than the other one, has a fairly good, for the times, nvidia card, and also keeps rolling with xkb-data being held back.

The other laptop, an even older HP with intel graphics, has been dist-upgraded every day, and both of them have not had weird removals during dist-upgrades, apt is nice that way, to show you in bright red when things are planned to be uninstalled, and I make sure to  closely examine what's in there, and none of the two had any removals planned in the last days.

But, the slower laptop with intel graphics, which I just managed to boot to alternative shell on 6.17-12, was dist-upgraded once more a little while ago, rebooted, and still no GDM.

Everything points to graphics drivers being the issue.

[ro_sid]

@Teriarch: Thanks for deeply analyzing the problem and the (viable) solution!
But I am still mad on the maintainer not having introduced an interim solution - like yours - or a final one. This small package - and is it really that important? - obstructs so many things (e.g. a working debootstrap as soon as any X11 components are involved, even as dependencies, only). Offering nothing for now nearly a week is a shame!
[Even you were faster . A pity that you can not "inject" your solution in the official repository.]

[n4ai9i522]

this seems to be relevant
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/4519