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unhappy upgrade

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  unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-02 18:00 +0200
    Re: unhappy upgrade "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2021-10-02 18:30 +0200
      Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-03 17:10 +0200
        Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-03 19:20 +0200
          Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-03 19:30 +0200
    Re: unhappy upgrade Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2021-10-02 18:40 +0200
      Re: unhappy upgrade "Andrew M.A. Cater" <amacater@einval.com> - 2021-10-02 20:20 +0200
        Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-03 18:30 +0200
      Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-03 18:20 +0200
    Re: unhappy upgrade David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2021-10-02 20:40 +0200
      Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-03 18:30 +0200
        Re: unhappy upgrade David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2021-10-03 20:10 +0200
    Re: unhappy upgrade Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2021-10-03 06:20 +0200
      Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-03 18:50 +0200
        Re: unhappy upgrade Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2021-10-03 19:00 +0200
          Re: unhappy upgrade David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2021-10-03 20:00 +0200
        Re: unhappy upgrade Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2021-10-04 01:50 +0200
          Re: unhappy upgrade Greg Wooledge <greg@wooledge.org> - 2021-10-04 02:00 +0200
            Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-04 21:30 +0200
              Re: unhappy upgrade David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2021-10-05 02:00 +0200
                Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-05 03:20 +0200
                  Re: unhappy upgrade David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2021-10-05 15:10 +0200
                    Re: unhappy upgrade Kenneth Parker <sea7kenp@gmail.com> - 2021-10-05 16:50 +0200
                      Re: unhappy upgrade David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2021-10-05 18:20 +0200
                      Re: unhappy upgrade Andrei POPESCU <andreimpopescu@gmail.com> - 2021-10-06 07:00 +0200
                    Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-05 17:00 +0200
                      Re: unhappy upgrade David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2021-10-05 18:20 +0200
          Re: unhappy upgrade "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> - 2021-10-04 20:50 +0200
            Re: unhappy upgrade Patrick Bartek <nemommxiv@gmail.com> - 2021-10-05 05:40 +0200

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#240806 — unhappy upgrade

In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not go well in a number of ways...

For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.  Which is a real problem,  because it's inside a virtual machine that I do all of my mail,  so I couldn't get at my mail for a while.  In Synaptic Package Manager if I try to install it I get the following error message:

"Package virtualbox has no available version, but exists in the database.  This typically means that the package was mentioned in a dependency and never uploaded,  has been obsoleted or is not available with the contents of sources.list"

I got temporarily past this by installing 8 on this laptop I'm currently typimg on.  Some things are decidedly less convenient.

Firefox is majorly different,  apparently having gone from 68.9.0 --> 78.14.0esr.  It no longer uses the font that I'm telling it to,  and for some odd reason won't play any youtube videos any more.  Instead I see a message on the screen that says "if video doesn't start momentarily restart your device".  Huh?

Konqueror is also broken,  I get "Could not start proess Unable to create io-slave: klauncher said: Error loading 'kio_file'"...

Trying to open a file with Okular gets me a similar message.

I don't see any way to back out of these changes,  or any obvious place to look for where the problems are.  Suggestions welcomed.


-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#240808

On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 11:57:51AM -0400, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not go well in a number of ways...
> 
> For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.  Which is a real problem,  because it's inside a virtual machine that I do all of my mail,  so I couldn't get at my mail for a while.  In Synaptic Package Manager if I try to install it I get the following error message:
> 
> "Package virtualbox has no available version, but exists in the database.  This typically means that the package was mentioned in a dependency and never uploaded,  has been obsoleted or is not available with the contents of sources.list"
> 
> I got temporarily past this by installing 8 on this laptop I'm currently typimg on.  Some things are decidedly less convenient.
> 
> Firefox is majorly different,  apparently having gone from 68.9.0 --> 78.14.0esr.  It no longer uses the font that I'm telling it to,  and for some odd reason won't play any youtube videos any more.  Instead I see a message on the screen that says "if video doesn't start momentarily restart your device".  Huh?
> 
> Konqueror is also broken,  I get "Could not start proess Unable to create io-slave: klauncher said: Error loading 'kio_file'"...
> 
> Trying to open a file with Okular gets me a similar message.
> 
> I don't see any way to back out of these changes,  or any obvious place to look for where the problems are.  Suggestions welcomed.
> 
>

Hi Roy,

On the broken machine: can you give us the output of /etc/debian_version

What's the kernel version it's currently running - uname -a should  give
you that.

Firefox _will_ be majorly different: it's one of the packages where we 
have to continue to track upstream's -esr version because we can't backport
security fixes.

What amount of output does an apt-get update give you?

If you can give us more info, we can perhaps help you better.

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater



 
> -- 
> Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
> ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
> be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
> -
> Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
> M Dakin
> 

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#240851

On Saturday 02 October 2021 12:27:26 pm Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 11:57:51AM -0400, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not go well in a number of ways...
> > 
> > For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.  Which is a real problem,  because it's inside a virtual machine that I do all of my mail,  so I couldn't get at my mail for a while.  In Synaptic Package Manager if I try to install it I get the following error message:
> > 
> > "Package virtualbox has no available version, but exists in the database.  This typically means that the package was mentioned in a dependency and never uploaded,  has been obsoleted or is not available with the contents of sources.list"
> > 
> > I got temporarily past this by installing 8 on this laptop I'm currently typimg on.  Some things are decidedly less convenient.
> > 
> > Firefox is majorly different,  apparently having gone from 68.9.0 --> 78.14.0esr.  It no longer uses the font that I'm telling it to,  and for some odd reason won't play any youtube videos any more.  Instead I see a message on the screen that says "if video doesn't start momentarily restart your device".  Huh?
> > 
> > Konqueror is also broken,  I get "Could not start proess Unable to create io-slave: klauncher said: Error loading 'kio_file'"...
> > 
> > Trying to open a file with Okular gets me a similar message.
> > 
> > I don't see any way to back out of these changes,  or any obvious place to look for where the problems are.  Suggestions welcomed.
> > 
> >
> 
> Hi Roy,
> 
> On the broken machine: can you give us the output of /etc/debian_version

9.13
 
> What's the kernel version it's currently running - uname -a should  give you that.

3.16.0-11-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 3.16.84--1 (2020-06-9) x86_64 GNU/Linux
 
> Firefox _will_ be majorly different: it's one of the packages where we 
> have to continue to track upstream's -esr version because we can't backport
> security fixes.

Okay,  but I don't get the apparent inability/refusal to play any videos?  It's not just youtube...
 
> What amount of output does an apt-get update give you?

Nine lines starting with "Get:", "Ign:", "Hit:" etc.

"The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/https could not be found."

"Is the package apt-transport-https installed?"

"Failed to fetch https://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/dists/stretch/InRelease"

and:

"Some index files failed to download.  They have been ignored, or old ones used instead."
 
> If you can give us more info, we can perhaps help you better.

Hope this helps.  I am really not sure what is going on here...


-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 

M Dakin

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#240857

On Sunday 03 October 2021 11:02:46 am Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
(snip)
> > What amount of output does an apt-get update give you?
> 
> Nine lines starting with "Get:", "Ign:", "Hit:" etc.
> 
> "The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/https could not be found."
> 
> "Is the package apt-transport-https installed?"

So I figured I'd look,  and sure enough,  it's not installed.  I told it to do so,  and while that seemed to go okay for a bit at the end of the process I get a box popped up saying "An error has occurred".  In the box it says "W: Download is performed unsandboxed as root as file 'var/cache/apt/archives/partial/apt-transport-https_1.4.11_amd64.deb couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'.-pkgAcquire::run (13 Permission denied)

No idea what the problem is here...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

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#240858

On Sunday 03 October 2021 01:13:19 pm Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On Sunday 03 October 2021 11:02:46 am Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> (snip)
> > > What amount of output does an apt-get update give you?
> > 
> > Nine lines starting with "Get:", "Ign:", "Hit:" etc.
> > 
> > "The method driver /usr/lib/apt/methods/https could not be found."
> > 
> > "Is the package apt-transport-https installed?"
> 
> So I figured I'd look,  and sure enough,  it's not installed.  I told it to do so,  and while that seemed to go okay for a bit at the end of the process I get a box popped up saying "An error has occurred".  In the box it says "W: Download is performed unsandboxed as root as file 'var/cache/apt/archives/partial/apt-transport-https_1.4.11_amd64.deb couldn't be accessed by user '_apt'.-pkgAcquire::run (13 Permission denied)
> 
> No idea what the problem is here...
 
But then I looked,  and synaptic tells me that it _is_ installed in spite of that message.  So I tried apt-get update again,  and the results are slightly different.  A bunch of lines starting with Hiit:1, Ign:2, Hit:3, Hit:4, Get:6, Ign:6, Get:7.  (No idea why 5 isn't in there.)  This time I get a different error:

W: GPG error: https://download/virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian stretch InRelease: The following signatures couldn't be verified because the public key is not avaiolable: NO PUBKEY A2F683C52980AECF followed by a couple more lines the last of which refers me to apt-secure(8).


-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#240809

On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 11:57:51AM -0400, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not go well in a number of ways...
> 
> For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.

https://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox

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#240813

On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 12:34:50PM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 11:57:51AM -0400, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not go well in a number of ways...
> > 
> > For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.
> 
> https://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox
> 

If you really need to run a VM, you may well be able to convert the
virtualbox VM to something portable suitable for, say, QEMU.

More important is to get the important machine updated - and to then
replace the 8 you've installed on the laptop you're writing from.

All the very best, as ever,

Andy Cater

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#240853

On Saturday 02 October 2021 02:17:43 pm Andrew M.A. Cater wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 12:34:50PM -0400, Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 11:57:51AM -0400, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > > In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not go well in a number of ways...
> > > 
> > > For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.
> > 
> > https://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox
> 
> If you really need to run a VM, you may well be able to convert the
> virtualbox VM to something portable suitable for, say, QEMU.

I'm not familiar with that at all,  nor with how I would go about such a conversion...
 
> More important is to get the important machine updated - 

I thought that's what I was doing.  I didn't expect so much stuff to break in the process.

> and to then replace the 8 you've installed on the laptop you're writing from.

I had 10 on it before,  along with some ham radio related stuff,  but I hadn't really invested a whole lot of time into configuring,  etc.  Once I get beyond this nonsense I expect that installing 11 on it and re-installing those programs won't be much of an issue.

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#240852

On Saturday 02 October 2021 12:34:50 pm Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 02, 2021 at 11:57:51AM -0400, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not go well in a number of ways...
> > 
> > For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.
> 
> https://wiki.debian.org/VirtualBox
 
Looking at that page,  it seems to go off in a number of different directions,  and it's not clear to me what I might want to do here.

I did at one point download some stuff from the Oracle site,  but am now not sure what to do with it in terms of making it work with the packaging setup.  In /var/cache/apt there seem to be over a dozen different virtualbox files,  and elsewhere Im finding virtualbox-6.1_6.2.26-145957-Debian-stretch-amd64.deb which shows a date stamp within the past week.  But how to get the system to use this is not clear to me. 



-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#240815

On 10/2/21 08:57, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not go well in a number of ways...
> 
> For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.  Which is a real problem,  because it's inside a virtual machine that I do all of my mail,  so I couldn't get at my mail for a while.  In Synaptic Package Manager if I try to install it I get the following error message:
> 
> "Package virtualbox has no available version, but exists in the database.  This typically means that the package was mentioned in a dependency and never uploaded,  has been obsoleted or is not available with the contents of sources.list"
> 
> I got temporarily past this by installing 8 on this laptop I'm currently typimg on.  Some things are decidedly less convenient.
> 
> Firefox is majorly different,  apparently having gone from 68.9.0 --> 78.14.0esr.  It no longer uses the font that I'm telling it to,  and for some odd reason won't play any youtube videos any more.  Instead I see a message on the screen that says "if video doesn't start momentarily restart your device".  Huh?
> 
> Konqueror is also broken,  I get "Could not start proess Unable to create io-slave: klauncher said: Error loading 'kio_file'"...
> 
> Trying to open a file with Okular gets me a similar message.
> 
> I don't see any way to back out of these changes,  or any obvious place to look for where the problems are.  Suggestions welcomed.


Backup your system configuration settings and data, remove the system 
disk, insert a blank, small, fast system disk for the OS, do a fresh 
install of the OS of your choosing, configure as desired, add blank, big 
RAID for data, and restore data.


David

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#240854

On Saturday 02 October 2021 02:33:24 pm David Christensen wrote:
> On 10/2/21 08:57, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not go well in a number of ways...
> > 
> > For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.  Which is a real problem,  because it's inside a virtual machine that I do all of my mail,  so I couldn't get at my mail for a while.  In Synaptic Package Manager if I try to install it I get the following error message:
> > 
> > "Package virtualbox has no available version, but exists in the database.  This typically means that the package was mentioned in a dependency and never uploaded,  has been obsoleted or is not available with the contents of sources.list"
> > 
> > I got temporarily past this by installing 8 on this laptop I'm currently typimg on.  Some things are decidedly less convenient.
> > 
> > Firefox is majorly different,  apparently having gone from 68.9.0 --> 78.14.0esr.  It no longer uses the font that I'm telling it to,  and for some odd reason won't play any youtube videos any more.  Instead I see a message on the screen that says "if video doesn't start momentarily restart your device".  Huh?
> > 
> > Konqueror is also broken,  I get "Could not start proess Unable to create io-slave: klauncher said: Error loading 'kio_file'"...
> > 
> > Trying to open a file with Okular gets me a similar message.
> > 
> > I don't see any way to back out of these changes,  or any obvious place to look for where the problems are.  Suggestions welcomed.
> 
> Backup your system configuration settings and data, remove the system 
> disk, insert a blank, small, fast system disk for the OS, do a fresh 
> install of the OS of your choosing, configure as desired, add blank, big 
> RAID for data, and restore data.
> 
> David

My current hardware purchasing budget is currently completely dedicated to buying stuff that I need to replace thanks to a nearby lightning strike.  Next up is getting my laser printer working again.  More and better hard drives will have to wait,  unfortunately...

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#240861

On 10/3/21 09:21, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On Saturday 02 October 2021 02:33:24 pm David Christensen wrote:
>> On 10/2/21 08:57, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
>>> In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not go well in a number of ways...

>> Backup your system configuration settings and data, remove the system
>> disk, insert a blank, small, fast system disk for the OS, do a fresh
>> install of the OS of your choosing, configure as desired, add blank, big
>> RAID for data, and restore data.
>>
>> David
> 
> My current hardware purchasing budget is currently completely dedicated to buying stuff that I need to replace thanks to a nearby lightning strike.  Next up is getting my laser printer working again.  More and better hard drives will have to wait,  unfortunately...


Okay.  Then use what you have.  The main points are:

1.  The OS should be on a disk by itself.

2.  A fresh install requires less knowledge and skill, takes a 
predictable amount of time, and has the highest probability of producing 
a good result on x64_64 PC's and servers manufactured over the past 
decade or more.


David

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#240831

On Sat, 2 Oct 2021 11:57:51 -0400
"Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> wrote:

> In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my
> workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go
> 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not
> go well in a number of ways...

First, back up all your data before starting the dist-upgrade series.
Also, read and follow the Release Notes of dist-upgrade for each
version. Reboot after each version upgrade, then do an apt-get
update/upgrade, etc.

> For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.  Which
> is a real problem,  because it's inside a virtual machine that I do
> all of my mail,  so I couldn't get at my mail for a while.  In
> Synaptic Package Manager if I try to install it I get the following
> error message:
> 
> "Package virtualbox has no available version, but exists in the
> database.  This typically means that the package was mentioned in a
> dependency and never uploaded,  has been obsoleted or is not
> available with the contents of sources.list"
> 
> I got temporarily past this by installing 8 on this laptop I'm
> currently typimg on.  Some things are decidedly less convenient.

Complete the dist-upgrade for all versions, then reinstall VirtualBox.
Be sure you saved all your VMs before the dist-upgrade(s).  They
may be deleted. 

I don't use the VB version in the Debian repos, but download
and install the .deb directly from their web site.  During the
install the VB repo will be set up.

> Firefox is majorly different,  apparently having gone from 68.9.0 -->
> 78.14.0esr.  It no longer uses the font that I'm telling it to,  and
> for some odd reason won't play any youtube videos any more.  Instead
> I see a message on the screen that says "if video doesn't start
> momentarily restart your device".  Huh?
> 
> Konqueror is also broken,  I get "Could not start proess Unable to
> create io-slave: klauncher said: Error loading 'kio_file'"...
> 
> Trying to open a file with Okular gets me a similar message.

Complete the entire dist-upgrade before trying to fix problems.  The
problems may fix themselves.

> I don't see any way to back out of these changes,  or any obvious
> place to look for where the problems are.  Suggestions welcomed.

I avoid dist-upgrading, if I can because of such problems, and do a
clean install of the newest version on a free partition keeping the old
install as fallback in case something goes awry.

B

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#240855

On Sunday 03 October 2021 12:11:13 am Patrick Bartek wrote:
> On Sat, 2 Oct 2021 11:57:51 -0400
> "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> wrote:
> 
> > In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my
> > workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to go
> > 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things did not
> > go well in a number of ways...
> 
> First, back up all your data before starting the dist-upgrade series.

I did back up a bunch of stuff,  and it's a good thing I did,  or I would have lost a lot...

> Also, read and follow the Release Notes of dist-upgrade for each version.

Where are these to be found?

> Reboot after each version upgrade, then do an apt-get update/upgrade, etc.

Are you suggesting that I go through that for all of the versions,  one after another?

> > For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.  Which
> > is a real problem,  because it's inside a virtual machine that I do
> > all of my mail,  so I couldn't get at my mail for a while.  In
> > Synaptic Package Manager if I try to install it I get the following
> > error message:
> > 
> > "Package virtualbox has no available version, but exists in the
> > database.  This typically means that the package was mentioned in a
> > dependency and never uploaded,  has been obsoleted or is not
> > available with the contents of sources.list"
> > 
> > I got temporarily past this by installing 8 on this laptop I'm
> > currently typimg on.  Some things are decidedly less convenient.
> 
> Complete the dist-upgrade for all versions, then reinstall VirtualBox.
> Be sure you saved all your VMs before the dist-upgrade(s).  They
> may be deleted. 

Yes,  I did save them and will do so again before I proceed,  since I'm modifying this one as I type here...
 
> I don't use the VB version in the Debian repos, but download and install the .deb directly from their web site.  During the
> install the VB repo will be set up.

I did do a download from their site.  But it's not clear to me where I need to put it and how to tell the package management software about it.
 
> > Firefox is majorly different,  apparently having gone from 68.9.0 -->
> > 78.14.0esr.  It no longer uses the font that I'm telling it to,  and
> > for some odd reason won't play any youtube videos any more.  Instead
> > I see a message on the screen that says "if video doesn't start
> > momentarily restart your device".  Huh?
> > 
> > Konqueror is also broken,  I get "Could not start proess Unable to
> > create io-slave: klauncher said: Error loading 'kio_file'"...
> > 
> > Trying to open a file with Okular gets me a similar message.
> 
> Complete the entire dist-upgrade before trying to fix problems.  The problems may fix themselves.

For all of the versions,  straight through to 11?
 
> > I don't see any way to back out of these changes,  or any obvious
> > place to look for where the problems are.  Suggestions welcomed.
> 
> I avoid dist-upgrading, if I can because of such problems, and do a
> clean install of the newest version on a free partition keeping the old
> install as fallback in case something goes awry.

I have done similar in the passt,  with Slackware.  Which isually involves stickinng another hard drive in the machine.  I don't have one handy at present,  though,  and probably won't be getting one in the near-term.

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

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#240856

On Sun, Oct 03, 2021 at 12:49:12PM -0400, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On Sunday 03 October 2021 12:11:13 am Patrick Bartek wrote:
> > Reboot after each version upgrade, then do an apt-get update/upgrade, etc.
> 
> Are you suggesting that I go through that for all of the versions,  one after another?

That is precisely how it's done, yes.  That, and reading the release
notes and fixing up all the little things that have changed with each
new release.

This is why *some* people (not all) prefer to wipe their systems and do
a clean reinstall of the newer version, rather than upgrade.

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#240859

On Sun 03 Oct 2021 at 12:55:43 (-0400), Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 03, 2021 at 12:49:12PM -0400, Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> > On Sunday 03 October 2021 12:11:13 am Patrick Bartek wrote:
> > > Reboot after each version upgrade, then do an apt-get update/upgrade, etc.
> > 
> > Are you suggesting that I go through that for all of the versions,  one after another?
> 
> That is precisely how it's done, yes.  That, and reading the release
> notes and fixing up all the little things that have changed with each
> new release.

But don't lose focus of what you're doing: making sure the Debian OS
is still happy at each revision. But don't try to cheat the calendar:
you shouldn't try to configure each and every application that you use
after the first step. Some of these external applications that you can
download today will just not work with, say, stretch, whose time has
passed. And who's interested enough to help out with such old software?

So minimise the pain and get /Debian/ to version 11; then cast around
for these applications in their new incarnations and try to install
them. With up-to-date software, you'll get more support.

> This is why *some* people (not all) prefer to wipe their systems and do
> a clean reinstall of the newer version, rather than upgrade.

Cheers,
David.

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#240865

On Sun, 3 Oct 2021 12:49:12 -0400
"Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> wrote:

> On Sunday 03 October 2021 12:11:13 am Patrick Bartek wrote:
> > On Sat, 2 Oct 2021 11:57:51 -0400
> > "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> wrote:
> >   
> > > In recent messaging here I touched on how I'd determined that my
> > > workstation was way behind being current.  Apparently I needed to
> > > go 8->9->10->11.  I tried the first of those steps,  and things
> > > did not go well in a number of ways...  
> > 
> > First, back up all your data before starting the dist-upgrade
> > series.  
> 
> I did back up a bunch of stuff,  and it's a good thing I did,  or I
> would have lost a lot...
> 
> > Also, read and follow the Release Notes of dist-upgrade for each
> > version.  
> 
> Where are these to be found?

https://www.debian.org/releases/jessie/releasenotes
https://www.debian.org/releases/stretch/releasenotes
https://www.debian.org/releases/buster/releasenotes
https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/releasenotes (Bullseye)

Here's the main document page:

https://www.debian.org/doc/

> > Reboot after each version upgrade, then do an apt-get
> > update/upgrade, etc.  
> 
> Are you suggesting that I go through that for all of the versions,
> one after another?

Yes.  You want to make sure that each version is fully up to date
BEFORE dist-upgrading to the next.

Also, check that the repo sources list is correct for each version.

> > > For some reason,  the software decided to remove virtualbox.
> > > Which is a real problem,  because it's inside a virtual machine
> > > that I do all of my mail,  so I couldn't get at my mail for a
> > > while.  In Synaptic Package Manager if I try to install it I get
> > > the following error message:
> > > 
> > > "Package virtualbox has no available version, but exists in the
> > > database.  This typically means that the package was mentioned in
> > > a dependency and never uploaded,  has been obsoleted or is not
> > > available with the contents of sources.list"
> > > 
> > > I got temporarily past this by installing 8 on this laptop I'm
> > > currently typimg on.  Some things are decidedly less convenient.  
> > 
> > Complete the dist-upgrade for all versions, then reinstall
> > VirtualBox. Be sure you saved all your VMs before the
> > dist-upgrade(s).  They may be deleted.   
> 
> Yes,  I did save them and will do so again before I proceed,  since
> I'm modifying this one as I type here... 
> > I don't use the VB version in the Debian repos, but download and
> > install the .deb directly from their web site.  During the install
> > the VB repo will be set up.  
> 
> I did do a download from their site.  But it's not clear to me where
> I need to put it and how to tell the package management software
> about it.

Did you download the .deb file of it?  You can use dpkg to install, but
it won't automatically take care of dependencies.  I use gdebi-core, a
command line utility, that will install the .deb file correctly and
install any dependencies. You must be root to install.
 
> > > Firefox is majorly different,  apparently having gone from 68.9.0
> > > --> 78.14.0esr.  It no longer uses the font that I'm telling it
> > > to,  and for some odd reason won't play any youtube videos any
> > > more.  Instead I see a message on the screen that says "if video
> > > doesn't start momentarily restart your device".  Huh?
> > > 
> > > Konqueror is also broken,  I get "Could not start proess Unable to
> > > create io-slave: klauncher said: Error loading 'kio_file'"...
> > > 
> > > Trying to open a file with Okular gets me a similar message.  
> > 
> > Complete the entire dist-upgrade before trying to fix problems.
> > The problems may fix themselves.  
> 
> For all of the versions,  straight through to 11?

More or less.  Check the repos are the correct for that version,
Update/upgrade, then reboot. The Release Notes gives full
instructions.
 
> > > I don't see any way to back out of these changes,  or any obvious
> > > place to look for where the problems are.  Suggestions welcomed.  
> > 
> > I avoid dist-upgrading, if I can because of such problems, and do a
> > clean install of the newest version on a free partition keeping the
> > old install as fallback in case something goes awry.  
> 
> I have done similar in the passt,  with Slackware.  Which isually
> involves stickinng another hard drive in the machine.  I don't have
> one handy at present,  though,  and probably won't be getting one in
> the near-term.

You really only need enough free space on a single drive to install
the new version.  I share the swap partition to conserve space. So, I
only need / and /home partitions for the new install. Some share
the /home partition, too, but I never have. The installer should take
care of setting up dual or multibooting as required.

B 

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#240866

On Sun, Oct 03, 2021 at 04:48:38PM -0700, Patrick Bartek wrote:
> On Sun, 3 Oct 2021 12:49:12 -0400
> "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> wrote:
> > I did do a download from their site.  But it's not clear to me where
> > I need to put it and how to tell the package management software
> > about it.
> 
> Did you download the .deb file of it?  You can use dpkg to install, but
> it won't automatically take care of dependencies.  I use gdebi-core, a
> command line utility, that will install the .deb file correctly and
> install any dependencies. You must be root to install.

You can also use this command to install a locally-downloaded .deb
package and its dependencies:

apt install ./filename.deb

The leading ./ (or ../ or /) tells apt that this is a pathname of a
local file, and not a package name.

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#240883

On Sunday 03 October 2021 07:53:39 pm Greg Wooledge wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 03, 2021 at 04:48:38PM -0700, Patrick Bartek wrote:
> > On Sun, 3 Oct 2021 12:49:12 -0400
> > "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." <roy@rtellason.com> wrote:
> > > I did do a download from their site.  But it's not clear to me where
> > > I need to put it and how to tell the package management software
> > > about it.
> > 
> > Did you download the .deb file of it?  You can use dpkg to install, but
> > it won't automatically take care of dependencies.  I use gdebi-core, a
> > command line utility, that will install the .deb file correctly and
> > install any dependencies. You must be root to install.
> 
> You can also use this command to install a locally-downloaded .deb
> package and its dependencies:
> 
> apt install ./filename.deb

Okay,  I was using a bunch of diferent apt-get commands to do the upgrade.  This is part of why I'm getting confused,  too many tools with very similar names...  :-)

That *did* install it,  and also gave me a really long list of stuff that it said wasn't needed any more,  but which I didn't deal with at all.  I assume that the next time around the apt-get autoremove command will take care of that?  It also downloaded one library to work with the package,  no big deal there.

I don't see virtualbox in my applications menu.  Rebooting,  I am seeing a *lot* of disk activity,  don't know what it's doing there,  during the boot process.  After it gets the whole way booted,  everything is smaller on my screen!  This is _not_ good for these 70-YO eyes,

I had thought initially that the program had not been installed into my applications menu.  But it turns out that they changed the name!  Instead of being in there under "virtualbox" it's now in there umder "Oracle VM Virtualbox",  which is why I missed it.

Tried it out,  it runs.  I'm not going to start it right now as I'm currently still running it on this laptop,  and that would not go well.  I guess I need to deal with moving some files around,  maybe do an rsync or something,  and then shut this one down.

Incidentally the issues with Konqueror and Okular seem to have gone away as well.

Now the only thing I need to do is get things back to something like the sizes I had before so I can read 'em.  Hell,  I can't even read the clock in my taskbar!  Any thoughts as to how to do that?

-- 
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space,  a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed.  --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James 
M Dakin

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#240893

On Mon 04 Oct 2021 at 15:25:23 (-0400), Roy J. Tellason, Sr. wrote:
> On Sunday 03 October 2021 07:53:39 pm Greg Wooledge wrote:
> > On Sun, Oct 03, 2021 at 04:48:38PM -0700, Patrick Bartek wrote:
> > > On Sun, 3 Oct 2021 12:49:12 -0400 "Roy J. Tellason, Sr." wrote:
> > > > I did do a download from their site.  But it's not clear to me where
> > > > I need to put it and how to tell the package management software
> > > > about it.
> > > 
> > > Did you download the .deb file of it?  You can use dpkg to install, but
> > > it won't automatically take care of dependencies.  I use gdebi-core, a
> > > command line utility, that will install the .deb file correctly and
> > > install any dependencies. You must be root to install.
> > 
> > You can also use this command to install a locally-downloaded .deb
> > package and its dependencies:
> > 
> > apt install ./filename.deb
> 
> Okay,  I was using a bunch of diferent apt-get commands to do the upgrade.  This is part of why I'm getting confused,  too many tools with very similar names...  :-)
> 
> That *did* install it,  and also gave me a really long list of stuff that it said wasn't needed any more,  but which I didn't deal with at all.  I assume that the next time around the apt-get autoremove command will take care of that?  It also downloaded one library to work with the package,  no big deal there.
> 
> I don't see virtualbox in my applications menu.  Rebooting,  I am seeing a *lot* of disk activity,  don't know what it's doing there,  during the boot process.  After it gets the whole way booted,  everything is smaller on my screen!  This is _not_ good for these 70-YO eyes,
> 
> I had thought initially that the program had not been installed into my applications menu.  But it turns out that they changed the name!  Instead of being in there under "virtualbox" it's now in there umder "Oracle VM Virtualbox",  which is why I missed it.
> 
> Tried it out,  it runs.  I'm not going to start it right now as I'm currently still running it on this laptop,  and that would not go well.  I guess I need to deal with moving some files around,  maybe do an rsync or something,  and then shut this one down.
> 
> Incidentally the issues with Konqueror and Okular seem to have gone away as well.
> 
> Now the only thing I need to do is get things back to something like the sizes I had before so I can read 'em.  Hell,  I can't even read the clock in my taskbar!  Any thoughts as to how to do that?

It would help people trying to follow what you are doing just to
confirm at each stage which version you're now running.
I /think/ you've got as far as stretch.

So the main things to confirm as working are the specific points
mentioned in the respective Release Notes. In stretch that would
be, for example, the 4.9 kernel is finding everything, that X may
be running as a user (rather than root) on the console it's started
from, and that your ethernet or wireless connectivity is still good.
(Changes were made to the kernel device naming.)

Those are just a few I recall, but note they all relate to the OS
rather than details in configuring third-party applications.
Once that's done, time to read the next set of Release Notes.
Note that even things like the best tool (apt-get or aptitude) to
upgrade with may vary from release to release which, remember,
are normally separated by a couple of years of tool development.

Cheers,
David.

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