Re: Getting a working base system

Bernhard Rosenkraenzer wrote:

>Hi,
>
>  
>
>>I got it installed and found out how to get a lot of things working,
>>with help of course (thanks Bero :-) ) , anyway I tried to get some
>>updates over Kynaptic at first I wound up with an extra kernel that
>>wouldn't boot with full hardware support,
>>    
>>
>
>That's weird. Any idea what kernel that was? They all work here...
>
>  
>

The last one I installed was had the numbers 2.6 and then the very last 
number in the name was a 9, that I think was the one that completely 
removed Ark from my bootloader, I can't remember which one didn't have 
full hardware support, I do remember it tried to use a bootsplash unlike 
the default kernel that was installed and I also remember seeing error 
messages as USB uhci and another similarly named module wasn't loaded 
properly, plus my mouse didn't work but thats all I can remember about it.

>>the second time I wound up 
>>with all my non-windows grub entries disappearing
>>    
>>
>
>That would happen only if all kernel rpms were removed for some reason (in 
>which case the whole system is unusable), but you can't do that without 
>either using rpm directly and specifying --nodeps, or using apt and 
>confirming that you're doing something stupid by typing in "Yes, do as I 
>say!".
>
>  
>

I had two kernels installed so when Kynaptic asked to remove on along 
with the updates I agreed thinking it was going to take out the one that 
didn't work, apparently it did more then that, I'll be more carefull 
next time.

>>so I'm effectively 
>>locked out. Does anyone know how I can get back in and restore the Grub
>>entries for Ark?
>>    
>>
>
>Assuming something really deleted your kernels, there's not much you can do, 
>aside from booting from some live system, chroot-ing to your installation and 
>reinstalling the kernel package.
>
>If something messed up your grub.conf without actually deleting the kernels, 
>you can press "e" in the grub menu, and just enter a working config manually 
>- a good start may be
>
>root (hd0,1)
>kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-3ark ro root=/dev/hda2
>initrd /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.9-3ark
>  
>

I think its safe to say the kernel's are gone. A fresh reinstlal 
shoudln't take me too much time, I should have time for that tomorrow 
and I've got a four day long weekend comming up starting on November 
11th I think.

>  
>
>>Btw. I know I complain about this a lot (in the regular Ark Linux list)
>>but the packaging system seems a little messed up, last time I
>>successfully booted into Ark I was unable to install any of the
>>development packages because of a lot of dependencies which were off by
>>a simple release number and not anything significant like a version
>>number.
>>    
>>
>
>Please explain exactly what you did. The version numbers of -devel packages 
>can never be off because they're generated from the same source package as 
>the main package.
>Maybe you forgot refreshing the package list?
>
>  
>

Qt would not install because the installed version of Qt ended in -4ark 
instead of -1ark, this was after updating everything from Kynaptic, I 
probably shoudln't have done that but I'm not used to apt or Ark :-P .

>>Should I assume that upon installing Ark I should avoid updating 
>>until some sort of announcement is made indicating that its safe?
>>    
>>
>
>No, it's always (more or less) safe unless we make an announcement saying it 
>isn't.
>
>  
>

When I upgrade is usually when everything dies when I'm using Ark, I'm 
not sure why I seem to be the only one having these problems.

>>It seems unlikely to me that others are contributing to Ark while
>>experiencing the same problems I'm having so there must be something
>>everyone here knows that I don't.
>>    
>>
>
>This is simply not happening for anyone else we've heard of - we need to know 
>exactly what you did.
>
>  
>

I'll start keeping a thurough log of everything I do in Ark.

>>I was unable to get my DVD-RW and CD-RW drives working in Ark, I don't
>>think they are properly detected since I manually edited the /etc/fstab
>>file and was still unable to get them to work.
>>    
>>
>
>There seems to be something really weird with your hardware - that's another 
>thing we never heard of (and I've installed 5 boxes today, all of which have 
>DVD-RW drives and just work).
>
>  
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>>I am fairly familiar with 
>>how to do this from Slackware and a couple of other distributions but
>>Ark didn't even know the drives were present when I tried to eject
>>/dev/hdb (DVD-RW) or /dev/hdd (CD-RW).
>>    
>>
>
>Try /dev/scd0 or /dev/scd1 -- RW devices are configured to use the SCSI 
>emulation layer normally.
>  
>
I thought SCSI emulation was unecessary with the 2.6 kernel, I'll give 
it a try when I reinstall Ark though.

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