Re: gdm/X broken by recent update
On Wed, Oct 22, 2003 at 07:33:22AM -0500, Kent West wrote:
> Robert William Hutton wrote:
>
> >Hi,
> >
> >Last night's update in unstable has killed my xserver. I'd normally be
> >able to work out what's going on, but nothing is showing up in my logs.
> >The symptoms of the problem are also different than the usual ones:
> >
> >- The X server starts, I get the grey background, and the cross, which
> > is the default X mouse pointer. I can move the mouse pointer around.
> >- Then, before the GDM window appears, the server just crashes out.
> >
> >There are no errors in /var/log/gdm/:?.log, /var/log/XFree86.log, syslog
> >or messages.
> >
> >When I run startx, I get the grey background and mouse pointer, and some
> >apps that are being run because they're in my .xsession. I also get the
> >gnome 2.4 splash screen very briefly, before the whole thing just
> >crashes again. It seems like it's crashing when it's trying to load my
> >window manager, but I can't imagine why.
> >
> >I'm very mystified about this; any suggestions would be appreciated.
> >
> >In a related note, is it possible to work out which packages were
> >updated? That way I could perhaps just roll back to the versions I was
> >running a couple of days ago. I use aptitude.
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Robert.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> I _suspect_ this is similar to the problem I and others saw, related to
> gsfonts-other. Try removing that package and see if that solves your
> problem.
Oh, you are just so damned awesome. Thankyou! I was about to reinstall
my system from scratch, I was becoming so desperate. Hehe I can't seem
to go for more than a day without my precious linux box.
Seriously, though, it just goes to show the dangers of relying on
unstable on a production workstation. I've had it break a few times
over the years, but never so badly as with the recent gnome/xserver
upgrades.
I'm not complaining, mind. I figure that I will still use unstable,
because I'm addicted to the latest software. What I do need to do is
take a bit more care with doing the update; upgrade cycle.
I really think this is quite a serious issue for those of us who rely on
an unstable box for production use. The only way I can think of to keep
track of what has been upgraded when is to use script to trap the output
of apt-get:
script
apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
exit
mv typescript apt-upgrade-`date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S`
That's not exactly elegant though, and there _surely_ should be some
mechanism for logging this at the dpkg or apt levels?
Thanks again,
Robert
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