SOLVED!: Upgrade Problems (Stable->Testing)
Here's how I ironed out the problems in my system after upgrading from Potato
to Woody:
* <r.a.jacobs@home.com> [250201 21:56]:
I was pretty sure everything other than my GUI and Sound was working properly
based on watching the screen messages during boot and perusing dmesg. The
only problem I really seemed to be having was logging into my Gnome desktop
and getting sound working (error messages during boot told me this was not
working)
> Regarding Sound: I have an Soundblaster AWE64 that was running fine prior
> to the upgrade. Now, for some reason, there are errors occurring when
> the sound modules are loaded. Loading during boot fails and when I attempt
> to load the modules manually I get "unresolved symbol" errors. Do I need
> to recompile my kernel? It appeared to me that the way modules were handled
> changed somewhat between Potato and Woody (I did not remember there being as
> many items in /etc/modutils/ as there appear to be now). Any suggestions?
> What additional information do you need to help with troubleshooting?
A recompile using the 2.4.1 kernel solved this problem. Had to fiddle a bit
with which modules to install, but otherwise I did not have much trouble with
this one -- the "unresolved symbol" errors were the clue. Oh..and modutils did
change significantly. If you are running the newer kernel (2.4.1), you need
the modutils package with the matching version number (modutils 2.4.1).
I scrubbed menuconfig pretty closely and completely redid my kernel. A few
nice things were better support for the SB AWE 32/64 and 3dfx Video Cards (
both of which I needed!). Turns out that you pretty much have to recompile
the 2.4.1 kernel to support a 3dfx Voodoo3 3000 card. Compiling in the
necessary 3dfx video support is what creates the tdfx driver you'll use with
the XFree86 server (/usr/bin/X11/XFree86).
> Regarding X or Gnome: I can get to the Gnome login screen and everything
> looks fine at that point. When I type in my user name and password, the
> screen flicks off and when it comes back into view I'm still at the Gnome
> login screen. In case it is relevant, my preferred Window Manger is
> Enlightenment. Suggestions? I'm not well-versed in "X" so I'll need you to
> tell me what files I should look for and provide to the forum and I will.
> Does this sound like it is an X problem or a Gnome/Enlightenment problem?
After recompiling the kernel, fixing the sound problem and creating the tdfx
driver, I still could not login to my Gnome Desktop so...
I pretty much reinstalled X, a bit at a time, to get this situation resolved.
I started by following the HOWTO article at http://www.debianplanet.org on
how to configure X4 to run with 3dfx cards. My goal was not to do it piecemeal
(I was NOT trying to troubleshoot); it just ended up that way. For what its
worth, X4 seems to run faster than its predecessor!
The gist of it was this:
kill x by ctrl-alt-backspace or whatever your preferred method is. I got
stuck in a loop with gdm bringing me back to the login screen so I had to
do a "kill gdm"
#dpkg --purge xserver-svga
#apt-get update
#apt-get install task-x-window-system libglide3*
The apt-get will remove gdm and install xdm in its place. I figured this was
okay. However, "startx" caused problems so I reinstalled "gdm"
#apt-get install gdm
and was able to get back to the gdm login screen.
Throughout this entire adventure I noticed that approximately 6 packages were
on hold and never upgraded: task-x-window-system-core and a number of xfonts.
I'm guessing that having the task-x-window-system-core files on hold is what
was screwing things up (though I never remember placing them on hold). After
issuing an "apt-get" install on the core files and various fonts, I deleted
/etc/X11/XF86Config-4 (leftover from previous attempts) and created a new file
with xf86config. I then shutdown and restarted gdm and managed to login to my
desktop! Hoo-rah.
task-x-window-system should have been the complete X environment. Something
was goofed on my system...hopefully its not on yours.
Hope this helps someone else,
rob
DISCLAIMER: I spent the better part of a day "fiddling" with my system to get
it all working again. I have to admit that much of what I was doing was
poking and prodding at X. I may have missed some of the details of what I did
so please do not take this account of my activities as gospel truth. Hopefully
it will give you ideas of your own to use in solving your problem.
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