Re: Programs that break (RH up2date) and require linux guru to get restarted

On Sun, Sep 07, 2003 at 08:50:50PM -0400, Jay Smith wrote:
> a) In the last couple weeks, the secure certificate for Red Hat's up2date 
> program died.  Thus the program ceases to work and new certificates need to 
> be installed, etc.  I am a businessperson, not "computer person" but I have 
> been running some variant of unix for about 14 years; linux for four years. 
> I have a "computer guy" who does the heavy lifting, but he costs me $$$ per 
> hour and I can't afford to run to him every time there is some little 
> problem.
> 
>    In this case, Red Hat sent a notice of the problem and directed users 
> to a web page that explained what had to be done.  However, because it is 
> the delivery mechanism itself that is broken (of a program that IS a 
> delivery mechanism), fixing the problem requires dropping down to the low 
> level installing of secure certificates, etc.  I read the information, but 
> did not feel confident that I understood what I was to do.  I am going to 
> have to get my "computer guy" involved to get it working again.  I feel 
> stupid and it is going to cost me a hundred bucks or so.

EASY FIX:
1. Download the apt and apt-devel rpms from 
        http://skrike.freshrpms.net/rpm.html?id=650
2. Install them with:                         rpm -Uvh 
3. Update the Apt databases with:             apt-get update
4. Install updated Up2date:                   apt-get install up2date
5. Problem solved.
 
>    This is a situation that a company such as Microsoft (as much as I 
> really, really, really do not like MS) would never allow to happen.  The 
> "linux packagers" absolutely *must* create products and services that don't 
> require a guru every few days.

<SARCASM>
No, Microsoft has never released a patch that had negative consequences unless 
you count a 50% reduction in performance a negative  (WinXP) or had to release
new ROOT certificates because the security of theirs had been compromised (last
month - look in WindowsUpdate).
</SARCASM>
 
> b) The other issue is that my connection to the Internet is over a 56kb 
> modem.  up2date does not like downloading big (originally over 2 MB, now 
> over 10 MB) files using such a slow connection.  It virtually always fails. 
>  I contacted Red Hat about it and they said that they had *never* heard of 
> such a problem.  Yet, according to my "computer guy" there were "lots" of 
> posts on the newsgroups about exactly this problem.  Red Hat had no 
> solution.  (I was able to manually download the files just fine using third 
> party download managers.) Then a few weeks later, Red Hat announced that 
> there were some improvements in the up2date program that would improve 
> service for people using 56kb modem connections.  AMAZING!  An improvement 
> for a problem that did not exist.  Wow!  Well, that raised the ceiling from 
> 2 MB downloads to 10 MB downloads.  Still the problem continues.

You may want to try using Apt for all your updating and downloading.  To update
the system run:

1.  Update Apt databases:                apt-get update
2.  Update the system:                   apt-get dist-upgrade or apt-get upgrade
3.  Clean up the temp files:             apt-get clean

Or use Apt to install Synaptic (apt-get install synaptic) if you would like a 
nice GUI interface.  

Dave V.

-- 
David E Vehrs, System Engineer          Aspen Systems
[email protected]                       3900 Youngfield Street
Tel: +01 303 431 4606                   Wheat Ridge CO 80033, USA
Fax: +01 303 431 7196                   http://www.aspsys.com