Re: X-Windows on PPC in Debian SID
Hi Colin,
Thanks for your reply.
On 1/21/24 12:35 PM, Colin Watson wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 21, 2024 at 10:41:05AM -0700, Stan Johnson wrote:
>> I have a PowerMac G4 MDD (two 1.25 GHz CPUs, 2 GiB memory) that has been
>> running Debian SID for years. It was last updated on 15 Oct 2023, with
>> no problems. Yesterday, the update failed. Specifically, "apt-get
>> update" worked, "apt-get upgrade" worked, and "apt-get dist-upgrade"
>> worked but deleted ~500 MB of X Windows packages, including Xorg, wdm,
>> etc. So the system currently is text-only in Debian SID.
>
> This sort of thing sometimes happens in unstable due to various
> dependency issues that are typically filtered out of testing; you're
> expected to keep a reasonably close eye on what upgrades are going to do
> and say no if the result is unsuitable.
Yes, I usually ignore the list knowing that I can go to a previous
backup made just after "apt-get upgrade", which is the same as saying no
at "apt-get dist-upgrade". So I can restore that backup, then run
"apt-get dist-upgrade" and capture the output.
>
> The proximate cause may or may not be sysvinit/systemd. The best thing
> would be if you still have a record of the terminal log, but it's
> possible you don't.
>
>> This system is using sysvinit instead of systemd, and perhaps that's the
>> problem? I noticed when I tried to reinstall wdm, apt wanted to remove
>> sysvinit and presumably use systemd as the init program.
>
> What happens if you try "apt install wdm sysvinit" to nudge it into not
> doing that?
>
I'll try that. I expect it will complain that wdm and sysvinit are
incompatible. The "apt-get dist-upgrade" didn't actually delete
sysvinit, but it appears to have deleted packages that require systemd
to be the init program, and any packages that depend on those packages.
I'll also try installing systemd first (and let sysvinit-core be
uninstalled), then I'll run "apt-get dist-upgrade", then re-install
sysvinit-core and see if that disables systemd and lets the X packages
remain. I've noticed before that some packages claim to be dependent on
systemd, but they'll continue to work if systemd is installed and then
replaced by sysvinit-core. But if wdm really does require systemd now,
that might explain this issue, with other X packages being dependent on
either wdm or systemd. As I recall, wdm is the last X login manager that
didn't require systemd (I think xdm and lightdm both require systemd, at
least as compiled in Debian).
-Stan
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