New 64bit install. More problems.

2014-07-06 Thread d_baron
1. /var/mail/usermail very large, containing hundreds of messages. Should only 
have 10-20. This file serves a dovecot imap server and messages have been read 
and deleted. What is going on here? Especially since the installer gives a very 
(too) small /var partition. (Looks as if /opt, /usr/local and possibly 
/var/mail may be moved to that oversized home partition and rbinded.)


2. No user can access KDE any more. Upgraded something that showed no error 
(used reportbug-ng to check since apt-llistbugs is broken) and now, no kdm 
login can access the dbus. Screen just blinks and returns to login. kdm.log 
cites the dbus problem in K*time*zones, kgreet, whatever. Newer kdm did not 
help. I will check the bug listings for them, however. Meanwhile, KDE unusable 
but command line is fine.


3. System no longer halts ... says it halted but I need to manually cause the 
power to cut off. Maybe related. Packages I suspected were removed but not at 
fault.


I am beginning to think that the Debian installer is good if one simply uses it 
and leaves it be, the snapshot as presented. I am used to having an up-to-date 
Sid box but apparently cannot upgrade to this in an orderly manner. (For all 
the rants, I started out way back when with Knoppix and upgraded and upgraded 
with very few catastrophes!) Hope I am wrong about this, that fixed packages 
will be around tomorrow or soon.


4. Systemd is turning a lot of heads and postings. Yes, indeed, the bootup and 
shutdown are lightning quick!! No more starts and stops of the good old 
days. I do not understand how this indeed works but it apparently does. I hope 
:-)‭‮


Re: New 64bit install. More problems.

2014-07-06 Thread Hans

 
 3. System no longer halts ... says it halted but I need to manually cause
 the power to cut off. Maybe related. Packages I suspected were removed but
 not at fault.
 
 

The command halt has changed! It is not halt any more, but halt -p.
This is according to the manual. The former simple command halt was a bug.

That is now fixed. (However, I got into the same trap.)

Best regards

Hans


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Re: New 64bit install. More problems.

2014-07-06 Thread Steve Litt
On Sun, 06 Jul 2014 21:54:49 +0300
d_ba...@012.net.il wrote:

 1. /var/mail/usermail very large, containing hundreds of messages.
 Should only have 10-20. This file serves a dovecot imap server and
 messages have been read and deleted. What is going on here?
 Especially since the installer gives a very (too) small /var
 partition. (Looks as if /opt, /usr/local and possibly /var/mail may
 be moved to that oversized home partition and rbinded.)

Looks to me like a failure of whatever is grabbing /var/mail/usermail
and putting it in the Dovecot Maildir. Fetchmail? Also, check the
permissions, ownership and extended attributes of /var/mail/usermail.

Beyond this, just use generally accepted troubleshooting procedures.

 
 
 2. No user can access KDE any more. Upgraded something that showed no
 error (used reportbug-ng to check since apt-llistbugs is broken) and
 now, no kdm login can access the dbus. Screen just blinks and returns
 to login. kdm.log cites the dbus problem in K*time*zones, kgreet,
 whatever. Newer kdm did not help. I will check the bug listings for
 them, however. Meanwhile, KDE unusable but command line is fine.

Sounds like business as usual to me. KDE is not only crashy, slow, and
resource consuming, but it's delicate. Because it's such an entangled
monolith, it's difficult to troubleshoot.

 
 
 3. System no longer halts ... says it halted but I need to manually
 cause the power to cut off. Maybe related. Packages I suspected were
 removed but not at fault.

I've seen that a lot. Me, I just press the power button when it says
it's halted. Supposedly that's one thing that systemd is going to fix.

 
 
 I am beginning to think that the Debian installer is good if one
 simply uses it and leaves it be, the snapshot as presented. I am used
 to having an up-to-date Sid box but apparently cannot upgrade to this
 in an orderly manner. (For all the rants, I started out way back when
 with Knoppix and upgraded and upgraded with very few catastrophes!)
 Hope I am wrong about this, that fixed packages will be around
 tomorrow or soon.

I think it's a matter of sucky documentation, which is rampant. First,
the makers of software do a lousy job of documentation. Second,
everyone with half an opinion puts yet another contradictory fix or
tip on the Internet, and if they test their fix or tip at all, they
test it in only one situation. And, if I had my way, it would be a
felony to use a pronoun in documentation. Redundancy is wonderful
compared to confusion. And how bout those guys using a word or phrase
that hasn't been defined in the documentation, and is known only to
people already past the point of needing the documentation?

Computers and Linux just keep getting more complicated, and
documentation just keeps getting worse. I'm pretty sure that if we all
had good documentation, we could modify our boxes to our hearts'
content without undue mishaps.
 
 
 4. Systemd is turning a lot of heads and postings. Yes, indeed, the
 bootup and shutdown are lightning quick!! No more starts and
 stops of the good old days. I do not understand how this indeed
 works but it apparently does. I hope :-)‭‮

I hope too.

SteveT

Steve Litt*  http://www.troubleshooters.com/
Troubleshooting Training  *  Human Performance


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Re: New 64bit install. More problems.

2014-07-06 Thread Sven Joachim
On 2014-07-06 20:54 +0200, d_ba...@012.net.il wrote:

 2. No user can access KDE any more. Upgraded something that showed no
 error (used reportbug-ng to check since apt-llistbugs is broken) and
 now, no kdm login can access the dbus. Screen just blinks and returns
 to login. kdm.log cites the dbus problem in K*time*zones, kgreet,
 whatever. Newer kdm did not help. I will check the bug listings for
 them, however. Meanwhile, KDE unusable but command line is fine.

This could be bug #746589[1].  Which display manager do you use, if any?

 3. System no longer halts ... says it halted but I need to manually
 cause the power to cut off. Maybe related. Packages I suspected were
 removed but not at fault.

Don't shutdown with the halt(8) command, it is not supposed to power off
the machine, and the systemd maintainers consider it a bug[2] that the
sysvinit implementation does it anyway.  Use the poweroff command
instead.

Cheers,
   Sven


1. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=746589
2. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=746650


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