Apt problem FC3

[dishawjp]

Hi All,

I just got back up after a MAJOR malfunction caused by a bad apt update on my FC3 install this evening. I did my usual "apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" and there was a problem with a rhythmbox update. Several errors reported, and then everything just stopped working in X. I shut down and got several errors relating to libglib-2.0.so.0 and some libSM stuff. Rebooting, I was unable to access X and again had several of these errors showing up during the boot process. I rebooted to FC2 and went to rpmfind.net and found that these were related to the glib package. I'm sure that Voidmain would have known that, but I had to go through the rpmfind search to determine that. I'll probably never learn this Linux stuff

Anyway I was able to download the proper .rpm, glib-2.4.8-1.fc3.i386.rpm to floppy, and rebooted to FC3. I did an "rpm -q glib" and was told that it was installed. So then I did an rpm -Uvh to try to install the one I had just downloaded, but was told that it was already installed. It may have been installed, but it sure wasn't doing me much good. Sooo, I did an rpm -e glib and got a milion... well actually only a couple of hundred thousand or so... dependency issues reported and it wouldn't uninstall. So, it wouldn't install the new one or uninstall the old one. Thanks. Almost like an OS I ditched a few years back, But anyway, I'd never tried the "rpm -e --nodeps" option before, but figuring I was already pretty well hosed, I gave it a shot. It worked! Then a simple rpm -Uvh to the .rpm I had downloaded and... well... hell... everything worked and here I am back in FC3!

Oh, also in the midst of this little crisis, I tried to go the "apt-get install" and the "up2date install" routes, but neither of these would work due to the missing libraries.

But the short of this tale of woe is that there is possibly something quite hosed in one of the repositories I use. They are:

rpm http://apt.sw.be fedora/3/en/i386 dag
rpm http://apt.sw.be dries/fedora/fc3/i386 dries
rpm http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386 freshrpms
rpm http://newrpms.sunsite.dk/apt/ redhat/en/i386/fc3 newrpms

Nothing too off the wall, or at least so I had thought.

So anyway, I really don't know what's wrong or if it was just something specific to my system, but you may want to be careful updating especially if you're updating rhythmbox.

Jim Dishaw

PS: Voidmain, I actually managed to fix something without having to ask you for help. This is probably a first!!!

[worker201]

Next time, remember that the "--force" and "--replacepkgs" flags will make rpm install the new packages over the old (already installed) ones. This makes it possible to reinstall glib with the same version package.

Also, don't forget "man rpm", which will remind you about all the swell options you have. Personally, I use "-vv" with rpm, just so I know for sure what's going on.

[Void Main]

Odd. I have rhythmbox installed and my system upgraded just fine (via my automated nightly apt-get dist-upgrade). apt, glib and php were updated but rhythmbox wasn't. I'm not sure what might have happened unless they had a bad package out there and fixed it right away so I didn't notice it, but that doesn't appear to be the case.

[dishawjp]

I really should have spent more time with the man pages. I saw the --nodeps option and had used that to force installs that whined about dependency issues so I just stuck with what I knew best. Probably the --replacepkgs would have been the better option and would have saved a step or two.

I don't know why things went so wrong. Rhythmbox was installed. I don't use it, but it was there. Weird.

I was a bit overoptimistic when I posted last night. When I went to shut down, I was unable to use the GUI. It said somethng about another library being hosed... some gtk thing. I have it written down at home and will work with it tonight, but the reboot and halt commands both require it. I had to "su - " and do a "shutdown -h now" to shutdown when I was done. But at least now I know how to go about fixing that problem. I just hope I don't find too many more issues.

Jim

[Void Main]

Well, you don't really want to do a --force or --nodeps because you will be overriding dependencies that will just get resolved the next time you run apt-get. I still can't imagine what could have went wrong since I did not experience the issues. I would have to see the exact commands, and outputs of those commands along with version numbers of any packages in question. You also mentioned running "up2date". Maybe your up2date repositories are conflicting with your apt repos? I never install up2date (or remove it immediately after installation) along with any *rhn* packages.

[dishawjp]

Maybe your up2date repositories are conflicting with your apt repos? I never install up2date (or remove it immediately after installation) along with any *rhn* packages.

That may well be my problem. I've been using both up2date and apt-get for updating. I will generally run apt first, but it the up2date icon still shows the red exclamation mark after the apt upgrade, I will run up2date to see which packages it is recommending be updated. I will usually then do those upgrades as well. Maybe by being a bit overzealous about keeping my system fully updated I ended up causing this problem.

I wasn't able to finish working on my system last night. My wife insisted I start my Christmas shopping. Heck, it was only the 22nd, but she was serious! That's a full two days before I normally start, but to keep the peace, I had to waste the whole evening shopping with her. The worst part was that she doesn't even understand the concept of planning shopping around the best bar stops. We never even got close to a Hooters and I didn't get the chance to shoot a single game of pool! She didn't even want to stop anywhere for a simple holiday drink! I suppose that the benefit will be that when my buddies and I make our traditional Christmas shopping run tomorrow (on Christmas Eve Day like it should be) that I'll have less shopping to do and more time to enjoy the experience

[worker201]

I was doing some updating the other day, with synaptic, and glibc created some extra output. Something about some ss* being turned off, and then turned back on again. I had no meltdowns of any kind, but it occured to me after dismissing the notice that this might have something to do with your issues. Unfortunately, I didn't write the messages down, and I can't seem to find a way to recall them.

Anyways, you will probably be pleased to note that you may not have been smoking crack after all

Everyone have a safe and happy holiday, no matter which one(s) you celebrate.

[Void Main]

I was doing some updating the other day, with synaptic, and glibc created some extra output. Something about some ss* being turned off, and then turned back on again.

Whenever you upgrade glibc there is a scriptlet that restarts your sshd service. It does this so sshd will start with the new libraries rather than possibly crash sshd causing you not to be able to log back in. It actually wouldn't be a bad idea if all services were to be restarted after a glibc upgrade. At least by restarting sshd you should be able to get logged in and tend to any other app that might have problems with the glibc upgrade. I personally have never had any issues that I can remember.

Everyone have a safe and happy holiday, no matter which one(s) you celebrate.

Same to ya! I'm off until next year. :)

[dishawjp]

But the sad saga continues....

I got home this evening prepared to fix a simple library issue, but when I tried to boot up, there was some serious unhappiness. Lots of library errors, No X, I tought that I had managed to get rooted. So I went for a reinstall. About a dozen or so beers ago. The install was ok, then I went to apt.freshrpms.net, installed apt, and did my upgrades. Everything was cool until I tried (emphasize the word TRIED) to reboot. Oh, it was a sad event in the Tux tower. I wasn't quite sure what had killed what, since I was playing around with several files while apt was doing it's thing... messing with services, /etc/hosts and my network file, as well as moving backups from my hdd2 to my hdc2 drives, and other miscellaneous stuff. Well, when apt finished and I tried a reboot, there were library issues and permissions issues galore. Even my LaBatts Blue wasn't keeping a smile on my face and I was starting to look at my Mandrake 10.1 CD's a bit more friendly-like. So I figured I'd do my very best not to CeNsOrEd the installer off and use the RHN updater. Well, that kind of froze and choked and I had to do a hard reboot once, but after a fsck and then doing the updates gradually, I eventually got a fairly functional system. Sort of. I'm using it now. Then I really wanted to install the fortune program and gkrellm. So I went back to apt.freshrpms.net and downloaded and installed apt. it was cool. I ran update and tried to nstall, but stuff was quite unhappy. Ok, I figured I could live without those, but I really wanted my 3D. Off to nvidia.com, d'l the installer and all was fine.... until I rebooted. There were screens I'd never seen before teling my that X was very unhappy and, among other things offering to run system-config-display for me. that wiped my /etc/X11/xorg.conf (I did this two or three times) and also took out my edited /etc/security/console.perms file. Hell, I even decided to not fight the system and let my inittab stay at runlevel 5 and do the GUI boot thing just not to make the Linux gods mad. It didn't help.

I'm running low on beer and lower on patience. At least not I can boot with no errors and no library failures and do basic stuff with my computer. Oh, my KDESBENT error has gone away... I guess that's a good thing.

Anyway I'm beginning to think that a move to Debian... or even Mandrake or SUSE might be better than having to fight with Fedora all the tme.

A drunk and somewhat discouraged RH/FC user signing off.

But I do hope that everyone out there has a great Christmas, or if you celebrate a different holiday this time of year, may that bring you and and those close to you a lot of happiness.

Jim

[dishawjp]

Well, I just figured I'd try installing gkrellm again via apt-get. It was a no-go. But I did get the following error message when trying to do and apt-get upgrade which may explain some of my issues.

Code: Select all

[root@eunix ~]# apt-get upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
You might want to run `apt-get -f install' to correct these.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  glibc-common#2.3.3-74: Conflicts: glibc (> 2.3.3)
  glibc-common#2.3.4-2.fc3: Conflicts: glibc (< 2.3.4)
E: Unmet dependencies. Try using -f.
[root@eunix ~]#


Does this shed any light on things?

Jim

[Void Main]

Jim, there are only two things that I can think of that can be causing your problems because I have never had the problems you are having on any of the Fedora Core 1, 2 or 3 systems I am running, nor have I heard of anyone else having the problems you are having. You are either mixing repositories, versions of repositories, or you have some sort hardware problems (but nothing you mentioned would point to a hardware problem). I know there is one thing for sure that you are doing different than I do. You are using apt from freshrpms.net where I use the one from Dag. I used to use the freshrpms.net version but have been using dag's for the last year or more.

Here's the process I have used many times and never had any problems whatsoever, and if you follow should have the same experience I have:

1) Install FC3
2) Install apt from Dag:
# rpm -Uvh http://dag.wieers.com/packages/apt/apt- ... f.i386.rpm
3) Check /etc/apt/sources.list.d/*.list to make sure they are pointing to the FC3 repos and not the FC2 repos.
4) # apt-get update
5) # apt-get dist-upgrade

Then every night I run:
# apt-get update
# apt-get dist-upgrade
# apt-get clean

Of course the above is automated. I have *never* had any problem performing all of the above steps and I do them every night as I say. The only other thing that I do differently is I always do an "apt-get dist-upgrade" where you only do an "apt-get upgrade". I never do an "apt-get upgrade". Now I wouldn't think that should cause a problem but it does say in the apt-get man page that "dist-upgrade" does do some other dependency resolution that "upgrade" apparently doesn't so that may be the difference. The only other thing I can think of is that you are running FC3 and have FC2 repositories in your list. When you do an "apt-get update" check the URLs very closely and make sure all of them have "3" and in them. Debian will behave the same way if you point apt to the wrong repository versions.

Regarding the last error you mention you should run an "apt-get -f install" which will resolve the dependency issues and give you a list of packages that will be installed/removed/replaced. It will prompt you before actually making the changes which will give you a chance to abort. But like I said, make sure you are pointing to the same version of repo as the distro you are running.

Here's the output of an "apt-get update" on my FC3 laptop so you can see the list of repos:

Code: Select all

# apt-get update
Get:1 http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net apt/fedora/2/en/i386 release [506B]
Get:2 http://newrpms.atrpms.net redhat/en/i386/fc3 release [496B]
Get:3 http://apt.sw.be fedora/3/en/i386 release [503B]
Get:4 http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386 release [1820B]
Fetched 3325B in 12s (269B/s)
Hit http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net apt/fedora/2/en/i386/voidmain pkglist
Get:1 http://newrpms.atrpms.net redhat/en/i386/fc3/newrpms pkglist [223kB]
Get:2 http://apt.sw.be fedora/3/en/i386/dag pkglist [839kB]
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/freshrpms pkglist
Hit http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net apt/fedora/2/en/i386/voidmain release
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/freshrpms release
Get:3 http://newrpms.atrpms.net redhat/en/i386/fc3/newrpms release [126B]
Hit http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net apt/fedora/2/en/i386/voidmain srclist
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/freshrpms srclist
Hit http://apt.sw.be fedora/3/en/i386/dag release
Get:4 http://newrpms.atrpms.net redhat/en/i386/fc3/newrpms srclist [30.8kB]
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/os pkglist
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/os release
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/updates pkglist
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/updates release
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/os srclist
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/updates srclist
Fetched 1093kB in 12s (87.5kB/s)
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done


Here's my desktop with the GeForce card:

Code: Select all

# apt-get update
Get:1 http://apt.sw.be fedora/3/en/i386 release [503B]
Get:2 http://apt.voidmain.home apt/fedora/3/en/i386 release [337B]
Get:3 http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net apt/fedora/2/en/i386 release [506B]
Get:4 http://newrpms.atrpms.net redhat/en/i386/fc3 release [496B]
Get:5 http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386 release [1820B]
Get:6 http://dries.studentenweb.org apt/fedora/fc3/i386 release [484B]
Fetched 4146B in 24s (173B/s)
Hit http://apt.voidmain.home apt/fedora/3/en/i386/os pkglist
Hit http://apt.sw.be fedora/3/en/i386/dag pkglist
Hit http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net apt/fedora/2/en/i386/voidmain pkglist
Hit http://dries.studentenweb.org apt/fedora/fc3/i386/dries pkglist
Hit http://newrpms.atrpms.net redhat/en/i386/fc3/newrpms pkglist
Hit http://apt.voidmain.home apt/fedora/3/en/i386/os release
Hit http://apt.sw.be fedora/3/en/i386/dag release
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/freshrpms pkglist
Hit http://dries.studentenweb.org apt/fedora/fc3/i386/dries release
Hit http://dries.studentenweb.org apt/fedora/fc3/i386/dries srclist
Hit http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net apt/fedora/2/en/i386/voidmain release
Hit http://newrpms.atrpms.net redhat/en/i386/fc3/newrpms release
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/freshrpms release
Hit http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net apt/fedora/2/en/i386/voidmain srclist
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/freshrpms srclist
Hit http://newrpms.atrpms.net redhat/en/i386/fc3/newrpms srclist
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/updates pkglist
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/updates release
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/updates srclist
Hit http://ayo.freshrpms.net fedora/linux/3/i386/os srclist
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done


Of course there is one repo in the list on my desktop that you wouldn't have. I have my own repo for the base OS (apt.voidmain.home), no sense in going out to the net to get a package that would be found on the install CD. As you can see all URLs have either "3" or "fc3" in them, with the exception of the voidmain.is-a-geek.net repo (has 2) where I have a few dinky little packages that will work on either FC2 or FC3, but I have control over this one obviously. Don't know if any of this sparks a thought of what might be wrong..

[dishawjp]

Thanks Voidmain,

I'm back up and running again, but it wasn't much fun. I ended up reinstalling again, doing my updates and all, but somehow ended up with duplicates of a couple of dozen libraries. They were things like glibc, gstreamer, bash, krb5-libs, hotplug, shadow-utils, udev, and etc. I think that this may have been caused by first updating using RHN and then installing apt from Dag's site. I did this before I had read your last post thinking that if I kept everything simple and just sytayed with an approved updater I would be less likely to have problems. I was wrong. I went through and did an rpm -q for each of the duplicated programs or libraries, then rpm -e the older. But the good news is that everything is now stable and 3D is working and I was able to save all my files. The system was running so poorly that I had to go into single user mode and mount my other hard drive and manually copy all my files to that drive. Then, once I was back up and running, copy them all back and then chown them all back to my user. What surprises me is that things got so bad. That and I'm not certain what could have caused it. But I now have the rhnsd disabled and if that had anything to do with this, it won't bother me again. Oh, I also upgraded kernels to 2.6.9-1.681_FC3. Somewhere along the way, I FINALLY got rid of my KDESKBENT error!

I ran into, and solved, one (possibly related?) issue on my daughter's FC3 box this weekend. I had gotten her another 256 MB of RAM, a DVD drive to replace her CD drive and a 128 MB GeForce MX 4000 Plus video card for Christmas. The install went pretty well, but when rebooting she had some permissions errors with some glibc stuff. She got permissions errors regarding libc.so.6 and libnsl.so.1 on bootup. I was able to fix those by booting to single user mode and running the "fixfiles relabel" command. Other than installing the hardware, the only other thing I had done to her computer was uninstall apt (from the apt.freshrpms site) and reinstalling apt from Dag's site as you had suggested. But the apt version from apt.freshrpms points to the ayo.freshrpms site, the same as Dag's version does. It just doesn't have the other sites in it's sources.d files. I don't know.

Now I'm wondering if my original problems regarding these libraries could have been a SELinux issue which could have been fixed by just running the "fixifles relabel" command.

I don't know and maybe I never will.

But anyway, I hope that you and your family had a great holiday. Thanks again for all your help.

Jim

[Void Main]

Maybe they were SELinux related as you say. I'm not running it on any of my systems. Maybe that's the difference? It's hard to say without being there to see exactly what was going on.

[worker201]

SELinux runs on my FC3 box, and so far hasn't created any problems. But my (brief)understanding of how level-based security works indicates that it would be very easy to majorly foul things up. One small setup error, and nothing works right ever again.

[Void Main]

I know it's probably late for Jim now but he could have turned off SELinux in system-config-securitylevel and seen if that solved his problems (don't forget to reboot after turning SELinux off). I think your ntp issue is SELinux related there worker. I saw on FedoraForum.org that this was causing other people problems trying to install nVidia drivers (another problem Jim was having):

http://fedoraforum.org/forum/showthread ... ht=selinux