Please try to get it right in future

[Scott James Remnant]

On Sat, 2004-10-16 at 23:21 +0300, Andy Jarvis wrote:

> Nevertheless, there remain some serious problems which must be resolved
> for this to become a truly excellent distribution.
> 
First it's worth noting that you're actually still using a development
release, so occasionally there are breakages and problems.

> A week or so back, I executed a Synaptic smart update, as is my wont on
> a fairly daily basis. I noted that, due to some discrepancy between main
> program and lib, Evolution was to my horror uninstalled.
> 
Yes, this sometimes happens.  The default synaptic upgrade method
specifically skips upgrades that introduce conflicts (as the dialog
says) ... the smart one sometimes takes steps that you're not expecting.

I'd guess in this case that an application you wanted to upgrade
depended on a library that conflicted with Evolution; the only way to
resolve that is either not to upgrade the application and library, or to
remove Evolution.

"Default Upgrade" does the former, "Smart Upgrade" does the latter.

Such major updates to application and library only happen within a
development release.

> Nothing over which to raise eyebrows. That evening I shut down my PC and
> went to bed. The next afternoon I switched on same PC and Linux, to be
> precise Ubuntu Linux, failed to boot. The problem transpired in that all
> the initrd files had been deleted, the Grub menu.lst had even been
> scrubbed of references to initrd and I was in the wilderness.
*snip*
> When I requested further help, such as whether there exists a boot
> floppy image from which I could repair the problem or whether the Ubuntu
> install process has been fixed to allow non-destructive install (i.e. a
> repair rather than complete re-install) I was met with utter silence.
> 
Sure, you can boot the install CD and use the console of that Linux
process to mount and repair your installation.  You could also probably
use the expert mode and only select to install the bootloader on the
system.

Making a useful "upgrade/repair" feature for CDs is on the TODO list.

> There has been no other solution offered. And as far as I can tell, it
> was all caused by a rogue release to the repository of a new version of
> the Linux kernel. No doubt if I had waited an hour or two, perhaps even
> a few minutes, the problem would not have occured. This is of course
> speculation on my part. I do not know the real facts.
> 
Again, you're using a development release.  Sometimes the only way
things like this get discovered is because the first person to get it
from the repository trips over it.

Scott
-- 
Have you ever, ever felt like this?
Had strange things happen?  Are you going round the twist?
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