Recovered!! (Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer))
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 11:01:44PM +0900, Osamu Aoki wrote: Or, just use sudo dpkg -i old-package.deb (maybe in chroot). Please read Chapter 2. Debian package management http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_rescue_with_the_dpkg_command (Belatedly) that is good info about dpkg working well in emergencies because it is low level and can be used from rescue disk to a target system. I will probably use that lesson someday. 8O But I've got the apt-cacher system going now so I know what I have archived, downloaded once to storage, without bloating my /var partition. Disk space can come in handy. :) -- Kind Regards, Freeman http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100302032434.ga13...@europa.office
Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
On Sat, Feb 27, 2010 at 09:22:34PM -0500, Celejar wrote: On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:05:58 -0800 Freeman eve...@worldwidehtml.com wrote: On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 11:01:44PM +0900, Osamu Aoki wrote: ... Osamu OMG! Osamu as in Debian Reference Copyright 2007-2009 Osamu Aoki? That was an undertaking. There is a great deal of clarity in the way the reference is written. Although it provides extensive technical information, it is very accessible to the beginner becasue of the selection of background information and the carefull way it moves from general to specific. Thank you so much for that marvelous piece of work. He deserves a thank you not merely for the work itself, but also for being one of the more helpful members of this list, who often points people to the section of the D-R that answers their questions .. And so he should. It is a great read. Debian wouldn't be the same without it. A fun way to learn something is simply to look up answers in the Reference to questions on a Debian forum, cite the section to the OP and add a thought or two. -- Kind Regards, Freeman http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100228104359.gb4...@europa.office
Recovered!! (was Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer))
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 11:01:44PM +0900, Osamu Aoki wrote: Hi, On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 11:41:26AM -0800, Freeman wrote: My ego may be the more delicately balanced but my system is the more precious. :) This squeeze testing cycle has been rough because of major transitions. My recent upgrade in one of the multiboot setup from stable to unstable caused unbootable system. Yep. I've never lost a file-system in 7 years of Debian until the xserver-xorg/mesa upgrade. Wait... you did not loose file system. I am writig from ex-unbootable system :-) This is typical unstable situation. Data are there. Just a broken boot system. You just need to boot system with another partition or from live CD and chroot into unbootable system after fixing obvious problem like broken /etc/resolv.conf. Then update system with good deb via aptitude in chroot. I have had several broken grub/lilo previously, too. These are easyones to fix. Sorry! Delayed by illness. Maybe I used the term unbootable too loosely. Following the big xserver-org/mesa seg-fault/crash I was at grub playing space invaders. 1.) I could reach the diversion to maintenance mode where it recommended running e2fsck on mounted partitions, which I eventually did, reluctantly. 2.) On restart I got up and running with errors flying everywhere, missing files and directories and frequent process failures. 3.) I shutdown (hard) and ran e2fsck from gparted live cd on all partitions, unmounted--about 15 minutes of fixing inodes, files and directories. 4.) On subsequent boot I could only reach a prompt that asked for a run level, to which it would reply that there are no processes left in that run level. !--But you inspired me to plug in Knoppix and and have another look.-- 5.) After about 20 minutes it dawned on me that there was no /etc directory! =8-O 6.) After restoring from a fairly close backup it is running quite well with some minor glitches that will require maybe reinstalls at worst. It seems as if the major problem throughout was the degredation, then loss, of the /etc directory. Thanks! -- Kind Regards, Freeman http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100227170408.gb24...@europa.office
Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 11:01:44PM +0900, Osamu Aoki wrote: Hi, On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 11:41:26AM -0800, Freeman wrote: In which case, I pin the rolled back version to 1001. The preferences file can live on in moderation for the sake of learning. Or, just use sudo dpkg -i old-package.deb (maybe in chroot). Please read Chapter 2. Debian package management http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_rescue_with_the_dpkg_command Osamu OMG! Osamu as in Debian Reference Copyright 2007-2009 Osamu Aoki? That was an undertaking. There is a great deal of clarity in the way the reference is written. Although it provides extensive technical information, it is very accessible to the beginner becasue of the selection of background information and the carefull way it moves from general to specific. Thank you so much for that marvelous piece of work. -- Kind Regards, Freeman http://www.debian.org/MailingLists/#codeofconduct -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100227170558.gc24...@europa.office
Re: Recovered!! (was Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer))
On 10-02-27 12:04:08, Freeman wrote: ... Following the big xserver-org/mesa seg-fault/crash I was at grub playing space invaders. 1.) I could reach the diversion to maintenance mode where it recommended running e2fsck on mounted partitions, which I eventually did, reluctantly. I would usually either boot from a rescue CD (or an installer and choose Rescue mode), or add the kernel boot option forcefsck along with the ro option (on both Debian and Red Hat systems). 2.) On restart I got up and running with errors flying everywhere, missing files and directories and frequent process failures. ... -- TonyN.:' mailto:tonynel...@georgeanelson.com ' http://www.georgeanelson.com/ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/1267294657.51...@localhost.localdomain
Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
On Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:05:58 -0800 Freeman eve...@worldwidehtml.com wrote: On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 11:01:44PM +0900, Osamu Aoki wrote: ... Osamu OMG! Osamu as in Debian Reference Copyright 2007-2009 Osamu Aoki? That was an undertaking. There is a great deal of clarity in the way the reference is written. Although it provides extensive technical information, it is very accessible to the beginner becasue of the selection of background information and the carefull way it moves from general to specific. Thank you so much for that marvelous piece of work. He deserves a thank you not merely for the work itself, but also for being one of the more helpful members of this list, who often points people to the section of the D-R that answers their questions .. Celejar -- foffl.sourceforge.net - Feeds OFFLine, an offline RSS/Atom aggregator mailmin.sourceforge.net - remote access via secure (OpenPGP) email ssuds.sourceforge.net - A Simple Sudoku Solver and Generator -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100227212234.362344db.cele...@gmail.com
Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
Hi, On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 11:41:26AM -0800, Freeman wrote: My ego may be the more delicately balanced but my system is the more precious. :) This squeeze testing cycle has been rough because of major transitions. My recent upgrade in one of the multiboot setup from stable to unstable caused unbootable system. Yep. I've never lost a file-system in 7 years of Debian until the xserver-xorg/mesa upgrade. Wait... you did not loose file system. I am writig from ex-unbootable system :-) This is typical unstable situation. Data are there. Just a broken boot system. You just need to boot system with another partition or from live CD and chroot into unbootable system after fixing obvious problem like broken /etc/resolv.conf. Then update system with good deb via aptitude in chroot. I have had several broken grub/lilo previously, too. These are easyones to fix. In which case, I pin the rolled back version to 1001. The preferences file can live on in moderation for the sake of learning. Or, just use sudo dpkg -i old-package.deb (maybe in chroot). Please read Chapter 2. Debian package management http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/debian-reference/ch02.en.html#_rescue_with_the_dpkg_command Osamu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100222140143.gb5...@osamu.debian.net
Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 06:41:35PM +0900, Osamu Aoki wrote: Hi, On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:15:24PM -0800, Freeman wrote: On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 05:10:26PM -0800, evenso wrote: On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 02:33:05PM -0600, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote: On Monday 15 February 2010 13:30:19 Freeman wrote: However, could a rollback represent an incursion on the priority system? ... The above preferences are for testing/unstable/experimental with a contingency for and emergency rollback a package to an obsolete package archived in my apt-cacher files. (My recent experience with the buggy xserver-xorg/mesa upgrade prompted this plan.) In short, I do not like people asking this kind of question to casually install mixed archive for their sake. Especially things like experimental. I'd rather find out that the above Preferences are destructive here than during an install! Thanks everyone, BTW. That thread is in my notes archive. -- Kind Regards, Freeman -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100222070019.ga7...@europa.office
Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
Hi, On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:15:24PM -0800, Freeman wrote: On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 05:10:26PM -0800, evenso wrote: On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 02:33:05PM -0600, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote: On Monday 15 February 2010 13:30:19 Freeman wrote: However, could a rollback represent an incursion on the priority system? ... The above preferences are for testing/unstable/experimental with a contingency for and emergency rollback a package to an obsolete package archived in my apt-cacher files. (My recent experience with the buggy xserver-xorg/mesa upgrade prompted this plan.) In short, I do not like people asking this kind of question to casually install mixed archive for their sake. Especially things like experimental. I'd rather find out that the above Preferences are destructive here than during an install! Your setting will install latest experimental of a package which you insalled from experimental. I see no reason to have stable or volatile when you are basically tracking testing or unstable. FYI: The upcoming apt_preferences(5) manpage (e.g.: apt_0.7.26~exp2_i386.deb) states: Preferences are a strong power in the hands of a system administrator but they can become also their biggest nightmare if used without care! APT will not questioning the preferences so wrong settings will therefore lead to uninstallable packages or wrong decisions while upgrading packages. Even more problems will arise if multiply distribution releases are mixed without a good understanding of the following paragraphs. You have been warned. (Hmmm... s/multiply/multiple/ .. time to make another bug report.) My ego may be the more delicately balanced but my system is the more precious. :) This squeeze testing cycle has been rough because of major transitions. My recent upgrade in one of the multiboot setup from stable to unstable caused unbootable system. If your ego ticks you, testing only (or with testing security if available) is good idea. If something broke, add unstable while keeping testing as default (higher preference) to get fixed packages. Right now, stable and testing have too much gap usually to be useful. I would rather rely on my local package archive under /var/cache/apt/packages/* for recent but working packages. (experimental's preference is set to 1 with reason.) Osamu -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100220094135.gc12...@osamu.debian.net
Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
In 20100220094135.gc12...@osamu.debian.net, Osamu Aoki wrote: Right now, stable and testing have too much gap usually to be useful. That's not true. I mix stable/backports/testing/unstable/experimental. Roughly 78% of my systems is packages from stable with the remainder mostly from testing. Packages installed: 1688 Version from stable/security/volatile: 1318 Version from backports: 34 Version from testing/security: 239 Version from unstable: 94 Version from experimental: 0 Local packages: 3 nvidia-kernel-2.6.32-trunk-amd6 - NVIDIA binary kernel module for Linux 2.6. pq - Progress Quest is a fire and forget comp w64codecs - win64 binary codecs Aptitude requires more use of the interactive resolver than in a pure system, but other than that (which I am very comfortable with), I actually am encountering fewer bugs than when I used stable+backports. This is also specific to my package selection. Users of different bits of software may find that much more of testing/unstable needs to be pulled in. Osamu is absolutely correct that this is an advanced setup. It requires an attentive and knowledgeable system administrator, and has only minimal support form the DDs themselves. (They provide you plenty of rope with which you can hang yourself.) (experimental's preference is set to 1 with reason.) Backports is set to 1 as well. :P -- Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. ,= ,-_-. =. b...@iguanasuicide.net ((_/)o o(\_)) ICQ: 514984 YM/AIM: DaTwinkDaddy `-'(. .)`-' http://iguanasuicide.net/\_/ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part.
Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
On Sat,20.Feb.10, 18:41:35, Osamu Aoki wrote: FYI: The upcoming apt_preferences(5) manpage (e.g.: apt_0.7.26~exp2_i386.deb) states: Preferences are a strong power in the hands of a system administrator but they can become also their biggest nightmare if used without care! APT will not questioning the preferences so wrong settings will therefore lead to uninstallable packages or wrong decisions while upgrading packages. Even more problems will arise if multiply distribution releases are mixed without a good understanding of the following paragraphs. You have been warned. (Hmmm... s/multiply/multiple/ .. time to make another bug report.) And either: s/will not questioning/will not question/ or s/will not questioning/will not be questioning/ I hope a native speaker will point to the better one (second?). Regards, Andrei -- Offtopic discussions among Debian users and developers: http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/d-community-offtopic signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
On Saturday 20 February 2010 11:24:01 Andrei Popescu wrote: On Sat,20.Feb.10, 18:41:35, Osamu Aoki wrote: FYI: The upcoming apt_preferences(5) manpage (e.g.: apt_0.7.26~exp2_i386.deb) states: Preferences are a strong power in the hands of a system administrator but they can become also their biggest nightmare if used without care! APT will not questioning the preferences so wrong settings will therefore lead to uninstallable packages or wrong decisions while upgrading packages. Even more problems will arise if multiply distribution releases are mixed without a good understanding of the following paragraphs. You have been warned. (Hmmm... s/multiply/multiple/ .. time to make another bug report.) And either: s/will not questioning/will not question/ or s/will not questioning/will not be questioning/ I hope a native speaker will point to the better one (second?). The first is not only the better one, but in this context the only correct one. Lisi -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/201002201223.06097.lisi.re...@gmail.com
Re: Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
On Sat, Feb 20, 2010 at 06:41:35PM +0900, Osamu Aoki wrote: Hi, On Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 11:15:24PM -0800, Freeman wrote: I'd rather find out that the above Preferences are destructive here than during an install! Your setting will install latest experimental of a package which you insalled from experimental. I see no reason to have stable or volatile when you are basically tracking testing or unstable. Experimental: I failed to mention that I have the target release set at testing. As I read the man, the 500 setting will respect the target release. Stable: True, and the setting is redundant. If there is no replacement version, stable packages will be left alone either way. Volatile: I was thinking of freshcalm but that setting wouldn't help anyway. FYI: The upcoming apt_preferences(5) manpage (e.g.: apt_0.7.26~exp2_i386.deb) states: Preferences are a strong power in the hands of a system administrator but they can become also their biggest nightmare if used without care! APT will not questioning the preferences so wrong settings will therefore lead to uninstallable packages or wrong decisions while upgrading packages. Even more problems will arise if multiply distribution releases are mixed without a good understanding of the following paragraphs. You have been warned. (Hmmm... s/multiply/multiple/ .. time to make another bug report.) I've read that a few times. 8) My ego may be the more delicately balanced but my system is the more precious. :) This squeeze testing cycle has been rough because of major transitions. My recent upgrade in one of the multiboot setup from stable to unstable caused unbootable system. Yep. I've never lost a file-system in 7 years of Debian until the xserver-xorg/mesa upgrade. If your ego ticks you, testing only (or with testing security if available) is good idea. If something broke, add unstable while keeping testing as default (higher preference) to get fixed packages. Right now, stable and testing have too much gap usually to be useful. I would rather rely on my local package archive under /var/cache/apt/packages/* for recent but working packages. So really I don't need a preferences file except for my emergency plan to rollback to a cached version of a package. (apt-cacher keeps its cache on a usb drive for my 3 machines. I am archiving versions by not cleaning it until the next release.) In that scenario, I would have gone ahead with an unwise package upgrade and would be retreating to save my arse, er (down ego, down boy) the system. In which case, I pin the rolled back version to 1001. The preferences file can live on in moderation for the sake of learning. -- Kind Regards, Freeman -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100220194126.ga7...@europa.office
Anyone Care to Critique my Apt Preferences? (was Re: apt-cacher as package rollback buffer)
On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 05:10:26PM -0800, evenso wrote: On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 02:33:05PM -0600, Boyd Stephen Smith Jr. wrote: On Monday 15 February 2010 13:30:19 Freeman wrote: However, could a rollback represent an incursion on the priority system? With testing/unstable/experimental, you'll have your Default-Release set to testing so that package versions in testing get priority 990, package versions in unstable get priority 500, and package versions in experimental get priority 1. 0. If there is a versioned dependency apt-get / aptitude will satisfy it; it will not take into consideration versions that do not satisfy the dependency. 1. If the version you have installed is less than the version in testing apt- get / aptitude will want to upgrade it to the testing version. 2. If the version you have installed is greater than the version in testing, but less than the version in unstable, apt-get / aptitude will want to upgrade it to the unstable version. 3. If the version you have installed is greater than the version in unstable, apt-get / aptitude will not want to upgrade it. You can use individual package pins to alter this. Pinning your currently installed version to (501-)990 would prevent 2 above, but not 1. Pinning your currently installed version to 991(-999) would prevent both 1 and 2 above. Pinning your currently installed version to 1 would cause 3 above to upgrade your package to experimental instead. I decided on a preferences file for caution and for future developments. Thus far: |Package: * |Pin: release a=testing |Pin-Priority: 990 | |Package: * |Pin: release a=unstable |Pin-Priority: 700 | |Package: * |Pin: release a=experimental |Pin-Priority: 500 | |Package: * |Pin: release a=lenny/volatile |Pin-Priority: 300 | |Package: * |Pin: release a=stable |Pin-Priority: 100 To rollback a package to a previous version existing only in my apt-cacher archive: (Contingency) |Package: package_name |Pin: version nnn* |Pin-Priority: 1001 The above preferences are for testing/unstable/experimental with a contingency for and emergency rollback a package to an obsolete package archived in my apt-cacher files. (My recent experience with the buggy xserver-xorg/mesa upgrade prompted this plan.) I'd rather find out that the above Preferences are destructive here than during an install! My ego may be the more delicately balanced but my system is the more precious. :) -- Kind Regards, Freeman -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-user-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of unsubscribe. Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/20100220071524.ga11...@europa.office
