Re: Not such a smooth upgrade to 2011... Help?

On 10/22/2011 12:58 AM, David Guntner wrote:

> urpmi --auto-update --replacefiles -v

Why --replacefiles?  This is generally needed when replacing a 
newer package with an old one.  Other than that, I would want to 
see the error messages that would result, rather than have urpmi 
or rpm automatically replace files of one package with those of 
another.

> I'm getting the following output:
> would install instead of upgrade package
> kernel-xen-source-2.6.32.11-2mdv-1-1mdv2010.1.x86_64

This "would install" I think is simply a change in the rpm build 
system, to make clear that a new kernel will not be an upgrade 
(accompanied by removal of the "now-obsolete"kernel) but an 
install of a new kernel. I am not sure if urpmi actually intends 
to install all the kernels listed.

> getting exclusive lock on rpm
> In order to satisfy the
> 'kernel-rsbac-desktop-devel-3.0.1-1mdv|kernel-server-devel-2.6.38.7-1mnb2|kernel-linus-source-2.6.39.3-3mdv|kernel-tmb-server-devel-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-linus-devel-3.0.3-4mdv|kernel-rsbac-source-3.0.1-1mdv|kernel-linus-devel-3.0.0-3mdv|kernel-linus-source-3.0.3-5mdv|kernel-linus-source-3.0.4-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-server-devel-2.6.38.8-1mdv|kernel-linus-devel-3.0.0-2mdv|kernel-linus-source-3.0.0-1mdv|kernel-linus-devel-2.6.39.3-3mdv|kernel-netbook-devel-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-linus-devel-3.0.1-0.1.3mdv|kernel-rsbac-source-2.6.38.7-2mdv|kernel-tmb-source-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-tmb-desktop-devel-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-linus-devel-3.0.3-5mdv|kernel-openvz-devel-2.6.26-1.openvz1.1mdv|kernel-linus-source-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-xen-devel-2.6.32.11-2mdv|kernel-vserver-devel-2.6.22.19-1mdv|kernel-openvz-sou
 rce-2.6.26-1.openvz1.1mdv|kernel-linus-devel-3.0.2-3mdv|kernel-kerrighed-source-2.6.20.21-krg2.4.3-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-source-3.0.2-1mdv|kernel-linus-source-3.0.1-0.1.3mdv|kernel-linus-source-
3
> .0.2-3mdv|kernel-source-2.6.38.7-1mnb2|kernel-netbook-source-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-kerrighed-devel-2.6.20.21-krg2.4.3-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-desktop-devel-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-server-devel-3.0.1-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-server-devel-3.0.4-1mdv|kernel-rt-source-2.6.33.6-1.rt26.1mdv|kernel-linus-devel-2.6.39.3-2mdv|kernel-rsbac-source-3.0.4-1mdv|kernel-linus-source-3.0.3-3mdv|kernel-linus-source-3.0.0-3mdv|kernel-linus-devel-3.0.0-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-server-devel-3.0.3-1mdv|kernel-rt-devel-2.6.33.6-1.rt26.1mdv|kernel-rsbac-server-devel-2.6.38.7-2mdv|kernel-tmb-laptop-devel-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-linus-devel-3.0.4-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-desktop-devel-2.6.38.8-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-desktop-devel-3.0.3-1mdv|kernel-xen-pvops-devel-2.6.32.11-2mdv|kernel-rsbac-server-devel-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-linus-source-2.6.39.3
 -2mdv|kernel-rsbac-source-2.6.38.8-1mdv|kernel-linus-devel-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-source-2.6.38.7-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-desktop-devel-2.6.38.7-2mdv|kernel-linus-source-3.0.3-4mdv|kernel-linu
s-
> devel-3.0.3-3mdv|kernel-rsbac-desktop-devel-3.0.2-1mdv|kernel-linus-source-3.0.0-2mdv|kernel-rsbac-desktop-devel-3.0.4-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-source-3.0.3-1mdv|kernel-rsbac-server-devel-3.0.2-1mdv|kernel-vserver-source-2.6.22.19-1mdv'
> dependency, one of the following packages is needed:
>   1- kernel-xen-pvops-devel-2.6.32.11-2mdv-1-1mdv2010.1.x86_64: XEN
> kernel devel files (to install)
<snip>
>   63- kernel-linus-source-3.0.4-1mdv-1-1-mdv2011.0.x86_64: The source
> code for the Linux kernel (to install)
> What is your choice? (1-63)

One of the 63 choices listed must be selected IF you are to 
install the rsbac kernel.  I would assume you would not want the 
rsbac kernel, so all would be irrelevant.

> Sorry for any word-wrapping my mail program may have done there.  My
> question at this point it two-fold:  One, why does it think it needs to
> install every possible version of the kernel that there is, and two, how
> do I get it to stop $#@!ing trying to do so?

First, since you are updating, do you have an rsbac kernel 
installed on the system?  Something installed just to see what it 
would do perhaps?  If so, uninstalling that would seem in order.

Check also for a xen kernel.  Maybe just take a look at all the 
kernel packages currently installed to make sure what you have 
already:

rpm -qa |grep kernel

If you find a bunch of stuff that shoulld not be there, you might 
remove those, or perhaps as a temporary work-around for the 
kernel problem edit /etc/urpmi/skip.list to include
kernel
or maybe *kernel* to make sure you get everything kernel-related. 
  Remember to remove that later, to allow updating the kernel 
when that is needed.

> My system is kind-of running, though boot up showed a number of errors.
>   Some stuff is new, some stuff is old, and I'm running on the current
> kernel (kernel-desktop-2.6.33.7-2mnb-1-1mnb2) that 2010.2 has in place,
> rather than the newer kernel (kernel-desktop-2.6.38.7-1mnb2-1-1) for
> 2011, because any attempt to boot that up at this point just causes a
> kernel panic and a paperweight where my Linux box used to be. :-)

Guessing you probably need to boot into run level 3 and use 
XFdrake (as root) from the command line to install the 
proprietary drivers for your video card.
>
> I even tried doing a "rpm --rebuilddb" to see if maybe it was an issue
> with the rpm database, but to no avail.

For 2011/rpm5, I believe the command you need is
db51_recover -evh /var/lib/rpm

I vaguely remember a need to run some command twice to clean up 
things that had gone awry.  This may be the command that needed that.

I really don't relish the idea
> of installing every possible version (and -devel) of the kernel.  I'm
> not sure what that would do, and I'd really like to NOT have it install
> other programs based on a randomly-selected kernel that I'm only going
> to try to remove once the upgrade is over with in order to reclaim disk
> space since I really don't need 84 kernels on my system (not that I'm
> sure my rather small /boot partition could hold them all, anyway).

If you clean up the kernel packages on your system, update 
everything else (using skip.list to ignore kernels), and get 
x-windows working, you might try installing/uninstalling kernels 
and associated packages using mcc, to make things easy.
>
> Any ideas how to clean up this mess?  I'd prefer to not have to just
> boot from a downloaded CD and have it do a clean install from the local
> .rpm files on my system (restoring settings for things under /etc isn't
> my idea of a good time) if I can avoid it.

Clean installs have clear advantages.  Restoring something old 
that will not work with the new can be problematic, so the 
upgrade route is always a bit of a gamble.

> So, anyone to the rescue? :-)

Well, you have a few things to try.

Cheers!

jim b.

-- 
UNIX is not user unfriendly; it merely
      expects users to be computer-friendly.