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

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Jim Beard grabbed a keyboard and wrote:
> On 10/22/2011 12:58 AM, David Guntner wrote:
>=20
>> urpmi --auto-update --replacefiles -v
>=20
> Why --replacefiles?  This is generally needed when replacing a newer
> package with an old one.  Other than that, I would want to see the erro=
r
> messages that would result, rather than have urpmi or rpm automatically=

> replace files of one package with those of another.

Because I made the mistake of following the release notes that Mandriva
had for the distribution.  They also said to use --auto, which was
proving to be problematic so it got dropped.

>> 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
>=20
> 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=
=2E

Yea, I get that. :-)  However, I don't really NEED to have every
possible version of the kernel installed on my system.  Given that my
/boot partition is only 50M, I doubt there's room for them all, either.
<grin>

> 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.

There's the part that's weird.  I'm not trying to install any of those,
nor are any of them currently installed on my system.  So why it's
trying to install *any* of them is beyond me.


>> 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 t=
o
>> install every possible version of the kernel that there is, and two, h=
ow
>> do I get it to stop $#@!ing trying to do so?
>=20
> First, since you are updating, do you have an rsbac kernel installed on=

> the system?

Nope.

> Something installed just to see what it would do perhaps?=20

Nope. :-)

> If so, uninstalling that would seem in order.
>=20
> 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:
>=20
> rpm -qa |grep kernel

[davidg@janet ~]$ rpm -qa|egrep kernel
kernel-firmware-20100217-1mnb2
kernel-desktop-2.6.33.7-2mnb-1-1mnb2
kernel-firmware-extra-20100429-2mnb2
kernel-desktop-devel-2.6.33.7-2mnb-1-1mnb2
lib64kplatokernel7-2.2.2-1mdv2010.1
kernel-desktop-latest-2.6.38.7-1
kernel-desktop-2.6.38.7-1mnb2-1-1
kernel-desktop-devel-latest-2.6.38.7-1
kernel-desktop-devel-2.6.38.7-1mnb2-1-1

> If you find a bunch of stuff that shoulld not be there, you might remov=
e
> those, or perhaps as a temporary work-around for the kernel problem edi=
t
> /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.
>=20
>> My system is kind-of running, though boot up showed a number of errors=
=2E
>>   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. :-)
>=20
> 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 was booting to runlevel 3 at the time.  X wasn't involved.  Like I
said, I can get the system up currently with the current 2010.2 kernel,
but the current 2011 kernel won't start up.  I'm guessing that there's
other stuff which hasn't yet updated that the kernel needs to run.

>> I even tried doing a "rpm --rebuilddb" to see if maybe it was an issue=

>> with the rpm database, but to no avail.
>=20
> For 2011/rpm5, I believe the command you need is
> db51_recover -evh /var/lib/rpm
>=20
> 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'll give that a try, thanks.

> 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 instal=
l
>> 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 dis=
k
>> 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).
>=20
> If you clean up the kernel packages on your system, update everything
> else (using skip.list to ignore kernels), and get x-windows working, yo=
u
> might try installing/uninstalling kernels and associated packages using=

> mcc, to make things easy.

I've got X running at the moment.  I was considering using the
MandrivaUpdate GUI at this point to deselect the kernels and see if that
would get me to the next step (along the lines of what Brian suggested
in his reply).

>> 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 loca=
l
>> .rpm files on my system (restoring settings for things under /etc isn'=
t
>> my idea of a good time) if I can avoid it.
>=20
> Clean installs have clear advantages.  Restoring something old that wil=
l
> not work with the new can be problematic, so the upgrade route is alway=
s
> a bit of a gamble.

Sure, but in the past upgrades for Mandriva have gone so well in recent
releases.  It's a shame this one turned into a disaster.  I sure hope
they smooth out those problems for future releases.....

>> So, anyone to the rescue? :-)
>=20
> Well, you have a few things to try.

Yes I do... :-)

                   --Dave



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