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Long neglected OS ... updating

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  Long neglected OS ... updating Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> - 2015-12-03 06:40 +0100
    Re: Long neglected OS ... updating David Christensen <dpchrist@holgerdanske.com> - 2015-12-03 08:00 +0100
    Re: Long neglected OS ... updating Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2015-12-03 08:50 +0100
    Re: Long neglected OS ... updating Darac Marjal <mailinglist@darac.org.uk> - 2015-12-03 12:20 +0100
      Re: Long neglected OS ... updating rlharris@oplink.net - 2015-12-03 16:40 +0100
    Re: Long neglected OS ... updating Lisi Reisz <lisi.reisz@gmail.com> - 2015-12-03 13:50 +0100
    Re: Long neglected OS ... updating Sven Arvidsson <sa@whiz.se> - 2015-12-03 17:30 +0100
    Re: Long neglected OS ... updating Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2015-12-03 21:00 +0100
      Re: Long neglected OS ... updating Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> - 2015-12-13 10:10 +0100
    Re: Long neglected OS ... updating Joe <joe@jretrading.com> - 2015-12-03 23:40 +0100

#161497 — Long neglected OS ... updating

Resurrecting a neglected OS, need a little coaching about the output
of `aptitude full-upgrade'.

I want to know if this output is fairly typical or what one might
expect after neglecting an OS a good while...  but mostly if going
ahead is likely to land my subpar skilled behind in hot water.

I've stripped the hefty lists of pkgs leaving only what I thought
would be enough for an experienced hand to be able to offer an
educated opinion if this looks like a problematic  `full-upgrade' or
if it is one to pursue.

  aptitude upgrade
    blah
    blah

,---- 
|  aptitude full-upgrade
|
| The following NEW packages will be installed:
| [...]  
|  {141 pkgs}
|  
| The following packages will be REMOVED:
| [...]  
|  {76 pkgs}
| 
| The following packages will be upgraded:
| [...]  
|  {957 pkgs}
| 
| The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed:
| [...]  
|  { 19 pkgs}
| 
| [...]
| 
| The following packages have unmet dependencies:
| 
|  liblognorm2 : Breaks: liblognorm0 but 0.3.7-1 is installed.
|  libsigc++-2.0-0v5 : Conflicts: libsigc++-2.0-0c2a but 2.4.1-1 is installed.
|  libxapian22v5 : Conflicts: libxapian22 but 1.2.21-1 is installed.
|  libcwidget3v5 : Conflicts: libcwidget3 but 0.5.17-2 is installed.
|  libtag1v5-vanilla : Breaks: libtag1-vanilla but 1.9.1-2.1 is installed.
|  libtag1v5 : Conflicts: libtag1c2a but 1.9.1-2.1 is installed.
| 
| The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
| 
|       Remove the following packages:                       
| 1)      aptitude                                           
| 2)      liblognorm0                                        
| 3)      libtag1-vanilla                                    
| 4)      libtag1c2a                                         
| 5)      synaptic                                           
| 
|       Keep the following packages at their current version:
| 6)      gstreamer0.10-plugins-good [Not Installed]         
| 7)      libcwidget3v5 [Not Installed]                      
| 8)      libept1.4.16 [Not Installed]                       
| 9)      libsigc++-2.0-0v5 [Not Installed]                  
| 10)     libxapian22v5 [Not Installed]                      

NOTE: I'm a little puzzled at the above (6-10).  Seems to be a bit
of an oxymoron or something.

|       Leave the following dependencies unresolved:         
| 11)     aptitude-common recommends aptitude                
| 12)     task-lxde-desktop recommends synaptic              
| 13)     iceweasel recommends gstreamer0.10-plugins-good    
| 
| Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?] 
`----

One thing bugging me is the idea of leaving the odd dependencies
unresolved (the last items 11, 12, 13)

Are there red flags in the above output that mean I need to do
preliminary work before `full-uptrade' ?

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#161498

On 12/02/2015 09:36 PM, Harry Putnam wrote:
> Resurrecting a neglected OS, need a little coaching about the output
> of `aptitude full-upgrade'.
...
> Are there red flags in the above output that mean I need to do
> preliminary work before `full-uptrade' ?

My goal is to *use* Debian, so I want stability.


I tried "apt-get dist-upgrade" in the past, and found it to be an 
exercise in frustration.  Even if it "worked", I typically ran into 
problems afterwards.


Only a backup, fresh system drive, fresh install, and restore cycle 
gives me the confidence I desire.


David

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#161500

On Thu, 03 Dec 2015 00:36:23 -0500
Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:

> Resurrecting a neglected OS, need a little coaching about the output
> of `aptitude full-upgrade'.
> 

How 'long-neglected', and, importantly, which version is this?

If it is unstable, this may work, but I'd recommend using apt-get
rather than aptitude for this many packages. And as David says, it isn't
guaranteed  to work at all. I've lost two old unstables, which could no
doubt have been resurrected if I'd spent enough time, but it was easier
to reinstall.

-- 
Joe

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#161513

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Thu, Dec 03, 2015 at 12:36:23AM -0500, Harry Putnam wrote:

>Resurrecting a neglected OS, need a little coaching about the output of 
>`aptitude full-upgrade'.
>
>I want to know if this output is fairly typical or what one might 
>expect after neglecting an OS a good while... but mostly if going ahead 
>is likely to land my subpar skilled behind in hot water.
>
>I've stripped the hefty lists of pkgs leaving only what I thought would 
>be enough for an experienced hand to be able to offer an educated 
>opinion if this looks like a problematic `full-upgrade' or if it is one 
>to pursue.

If this is a previously released Debian, then it may be easier to 
upgrade step-wise. That is, don't try to update Debian 4 to Debian 8, 
but go 4 -> 5 -> 6 ...

Secondly, some points I find useful with regards to maintaining a 
system:

Mark packages you don't want as "auto" and only keep the packages you 
want as "manual". That is, most people don't want lib* packages, or 
indeed *-common packages. Oh, yes, the should be on your system but you, 
as the administrator don't really care about them. Generally, you want a 
user-facing program (iceweasel, mutt, gnome-control-center); you don't 
really care if that brings in libfoo23 or libfoo24. The point of this 
exercise is to tell the package manager which packages you actually want 
installed and which it can feel more free to delete.

Secondly, use the TUI mode of aptitude and tune the resolver. At the 
prompt below, you can press 'e' to enter the TUI mode at which point 
it's easier to see what's being proposed. Now, go through the list of 
removals and press 'r' on a few of the packages you can't live without 
(i.e. You probably want to keep your browser, but your window manager 
may have been replaced by something else). When you have a few proposals 
rejected, press '.' to request another solution from aptitude. You will 
probably need to keep rejecting some removals and requesting another 
solution, but the best solution you're likely to get is "0 removals, X 
packages kept". With luck, that will also include some 
updates/installations, too. Press 'g' to Go Ahead with the changes and 
then you can take a look at the packages which are being held.  
Hopefully, the task of "Why are these updates broken?" will then be 
smaller.

>
>  aptitude upgrade blah blah
>
[cut]
>
>One thing bugging me is the idea of leaving the odd dependencies 
>unresolved (the last items 11, 12, 13)
>
>Are there red flags in the above output that mean I need to do 
>preliminary work before `full-uptrade' ?
>

-- For more information, please reread.

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#161518

On Thu, December 3, 2015 5:15 am, Darac Marjal wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 03, 2015 at 12:36:23AM -0500, Harry Putnam wrote:
>> Resurrecting a neglected OS, need a little coaching about the output of
>>  `aptitude full-upgrade'.

The best approach for long neglect likely is a fresh installation, which
can work wonders in performance.  The perspective provided by experience
makes for a better installation.  Many facets of an old installation
(partitioning, in particular) should be considered; they may be far from
optimum.  And numerous new tools likely have been added to the Debian
repository; a fresh installation encourages an inspection of the
repository.

Russ

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#161515

On Thursday 03 December 2015 05:36:23 Harry Putnam wrote:
> Resurrecting a neglected OS, need a little coaching about the output
> of `aptitude full-upgrade'.

When updating an even slightly neglected OS, I _never_ go straight to 
full-upgrade.

# aptitude safe-upgrade

followed by

# aptitude full-upgrade

Of course, theer could still be problems that you have to fix as suggested.  
But try that first, and do it in at least two steps anyway.

Lisi

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#161522

[Multipart message — attachments visible in raw view] — view raw

On Thu, 2015-12-03 at 00:36 -0500, Harry Putnam wrote:
> Resurrecting a neglected OS, need a little coaching about the output
> of `aptitude full-upgrade'.

If this is an upgrade from one stable release to another, just read the
release notes and follow the recommended procedure.

-- 
Cheers,
Sven Arvidsson
http://www.whiz.se
PGP Key ID 6FAB5CD5

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#161530

[ Speaking as someone who re-installs as rarely as possible, and whose
  machines almost all derive (via upgrades like yours) from an install
  from around 2006.  ]

> | The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
> | 
> |       Remove the following packages:                       
> | 1)      aptitude                                           
> | 2)      liblognorm0                                        
> | 3)      libtag1-vanilla                                    
> | 4)      libtag1c2a                                         
> | 5)      synaptic                                           

The list of removed packages is usually the main issue.
You can try "r 1" followed by "n" to see if aptitude finds another
solution that doesn't remove itself, but if it can't find a good
solution, you can go ahead with this and afterwards do an "apt-get
install aptitude".

> |       Keep the following packages at their current version:
> | 6)      gstreamer0.10-plugins-good [Not Installed]         
> | 7)      libcwidget3v5 [Not Installed]                      
> | 8)      libept1.4.16 [Not Installed]                       
> | 9)      libsigc++-2.0-0v5 [Not Installed]                  
> | 10)     libxapian22v5 [Not Installed]                      
> NOTE: I'm a little puzzled at the above (6-10).  Seems to be a bit
> of an oxymoron or something.

Yes, the output sometimes includes things which are just completely irrelevant.
You safely ignore those.

> |       Leave the following dependencies unresolved:         
> | 11)     aptitude-common recommends aptitude                
> | 12)     task-lxde-desktop recommends synaptic              
> | 13)     iceweasel recommends gstreamer0.10-plugins-good    

These are just recommendations (not requirements), so it's safe to leave
those soft dependencies out.  Personally I set

   Aptitude::Recommends-Important "False";

in my /etc/apt/apt.conf because I find I more often than not prefer not
to include the "recommended" packages.

As someone else suggested, you can also try and do it in smaller steps.
E.g. do a "safe-upgrade" first.  Or looking at the list of packages that
are to be upgraded, pick a few important ones and upgrade them
separately.  E.g. I often end up doing

    aptitude install apt

first, and maybe

    aptitude install ssh emacs

later.  For some packages (e.g. "gnome"), upgrading them may end up
performing almost the complete upgrade, tho.


        Stefan

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#161720

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> [ Speaking as someone who re-installs as rarely as possible, and whose
>   machines almost all derive (via upgrades like yours) from an install
>   from around 2006.  ]

OK, now were talking....

Thanks again to all posters... really good expert help here.

[...] main bulk of post snipped

Thank you Stefan... once again you've provided concise and very
helpful input.

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#161536

On Thu, 03 Dec 2015 00:36:23 -0500
Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:

> Resurrecting a neglected OS, need a little coaching about the output
> of `aptitude full-upgrade'.
> 
> I want to know if this output is fairly typical or what one might
> expect after neglecting an OS a good while...  but mostly if going
> ahead is likely to land my subpar skilled behind in hot water.
> 
> I've stripped the hefty lists of pkgs leaving only what I thought
> would be enough for an experienced hand to be able to offer an
> educated opinion if this looks like a problematic  `full-upgrade' or
> if it is one to pursue.
> 
>   aptitude upgrade
>     blah
>     blah
> 
> ,---- 
> |  aptitude full-upgrade
> |
> | The following NEW packages will be installed:
> | [...]  
> |  {141 pkgs}
> |  
> | The following packages will be REMOVED:
> | [...]  
> |  {76 pkgs}
> | 
> | The following packages will be upgraded:
> | [...]  
> |  {957 pkgs}
> | 
> | The following packages are RECOMMENDED but will NOT be installed:
> | [...]  
> |  { 19 pkgs}
> | 
> | [...]
> | 
> | The following packages have unmet dependencies:
> | 
> |  liblognorm2 : Breaks: liblognorm0 but 0.3.7-1 is installed.
> |  libsigc++-2.0-0v5 : Conflicts: libsigc++-2.0-0c2a but 2.4.1-1 is
> installed. |  libxapian22v5 : Conflicts: libxapian22 but 1.2.21-1 is
> installed. |  libcwidget3v5 : Conflicts: libcwidget3 but 0.5.17-2 is
> installed. |  libtag1v5-vanilla : Breaks: libtag1-vanilla but
> 1.9.1-2.1 is installed. |  libtag1v5 : Conflicts: libtag1c2a but
> 1.9.1-2.1 is installed. | 
> | The following actions will resolve these dependencies:
> | 
> |       Remove the following packages:                       
> | 1)      aptitude                                           
> | 2)      liblognorm0                                        
> | 3)      libtag1-vanilla                                    
> | 4)      libtag1c2a                                         
> | 5)      synaptic                                           
> | 
> |       Keep the following packages at their current version:
> | 6)      gstreamer0.10-plugins-good [Not Installed]         
> | 7)      libcwidget3v5 [Not Installed]                      
> | 8)      libept1.4.16 [Not Installed]                       
> | 9)      libsigc++-2.0-0v5 [Not Installed]                  
> | 10)     libxapian22v5 [Not Installed]                      
> 
> NOTE: I'm a little puzzled at the above (6-10).  Seems to be a bit
> of an oxymoron or something.
> 
> |       Leave the following dependencies unresolved:         
> | 11)     aptitude-common recommends aptitude                
> | 12)     task-lxde-desktop recommends synaptic              
> | 13)     iceweasel recommends gstreamer0.10-plugins-good    
> | 
> | Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?] 
> `----
> 
> One thing bugging me is the idea of leaving the odd dependencies
> unresolved (the last items 11, 12, 13)
> 
> Are there red flags in the above output that mean I need to do
> preliminary work before `full-uptrade' ?
> 

By an odd coincidence, today I found a sid which needed help, to the
tune of over 900 upgrades, comparable with yours. It seems to have gone
smoothly...

Firstly, you might try again with apt-get, which I have already
recommended for large numbers of packages, and which did the job for me
today. Also, I am a little bothered by the fact that aptitude in your
case seems willing to remove itself. I'm sure that would work OK but
I'd still rather do the job from apt-get, rather than sawing off the
branch underneath me. I would worry a lot if the system wanted to
remove aptitude, synaptic *and* apt-get.

Don't worry about your items 11-13, they are only recommends, and most
of us don't install recommends. In this case, two are generated by
the temporary need to remove aptitude and synaptic, The explanation of
6-10 is that they are not currently installed, but a complete upgrade
would involve them being newly installed, but there's a problem with
that at the moment.

Sometimes you just have to grit your teeth, note down what is being
removed, and hope that after the dust settles, those things can be
replaced. Very often, they can be immediately reinstalled, as they
didn't really need to be removed, had the other upgrades been done in
the right order. Certainly aptitude and synaptic are installable in the
current state of unstable, there's no problem with them.

I've also found, from time to time, that a job that neither aptitude
nor apt-get can do is due to them attempting the upgrades in the wrong
order. I've cleared logjams by using synaptic to chip away at the list
of upgrades, replacing anything that will go easily, and continuing
until I get down to a hard core of non-upgradable packages. A few
times, I've found that they can all be upgraded, but that the apt tools
didn't discover the right order to achieve this.

Also, you can try answering 'no' to aptitude's suggested solution, in
which case, it will normally find another. It's up to you to guess what
might be a 'better' solution, and if you keep saying 'no', it
eventually sulks and says it will leave everything untouched. If you
tell it to quit without doing anything, it appears distinctly miffed.

-- 
Joe

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