• Registered: 2010-03-26
  • Posts: 194

Topic: Upgrades cause X failure

I have been running alpha 1 since it came out on my old inspiron, but upgrading my packages (mark all upgrades in synaptic) causes me to have an unusable system.
What I get is an error message stating that x server cannot function due to not finding my monitor. I can give more specifics if needed. This system has had numerous failures with Ubuntu due to the intel graphics chipset, so I was suprised when the alpha install went so smooth.
Is there any way I can single out which upgrade is causing the trouble (short of doing them one-by-one)?
Is a good idea to use this OS without ever updating anything?

thanks
Chris

  • Registered: 2009-05-04
  • Posts: 250

Re: Upgrades cause X failure

I've had some similar problems when installing new kernels--if this is the problem you could always try booting into an old kernel if it is still installed in grub.

Is a good idea to use this OS without ever updating anything?

Probably not...thats how security and bug fixes come in.

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  • gareim
  • #! CrunchBanger
  • Offline
  • From: Chicago
  • Registered: 2009-11-11
  • Posts: 154

Re: Upgrades cause X failure

cchhrriiss121212 wrote:

I have been running alpha 1 since it came out on my old inspiron, but upgrading my packages (mark all upgrades in synaptic) causes me to have an unusable system.
What I get is an error message stating that x server cannot function due to not finding my monitor. I can give more specifics if needed. This system has had numerous failures with Ubuntu due to the intel graphics chipset, so I was suprised when the alpha install went so smooth.
Is there any way I can single out which upgrade is causing the trouble (short of doing them one-by-one)?
Is a good idea to use this OS without ever updating anything?

thanks
Chris

You could try upgrading while at runlevel 1.. It's supposed to have a lower risk of breaking things.

Last edited by gareim (2010-07-28 19:45:23)

  • Registered: 2008-11-24
  • Posts: 1,858

Re: Upgrades cause X failure

gareim wrote:

You could try upgrading while at runlevel 1.. It's supposed to have a lower risk of breaking things.

+1; there are good instructions for doing this in the sidux manual: http://manual.sidux.com/en/sys-admin-ap … pt-upgrade

Remember that you are using an Alpha; once #! has its final release, it will be based on Debian Stable, and updates will be minor and non-system-breaking.

  • Registered: 2008-11-24
  • Posts: 1,858

Re: Upgrades cause X failure

But saying "you should have done this..." isn't very helpful to your immediate problem, now is it? wink

So a couple of questions:

1. Your exact Intel graphics card? (use 'lspci' if you're not sure)
2. Can you boot into text mode OK?

  • Registered: 2010-03-26
  • Posts: 194

Re: Upgrades cause X failure

Thanks for the advice everyone. The failure occurred regardless of what kernel I booted into.

Snowpine - I should have mentioned that since having the failure, I have re-installed alpha to my root partition, so the problem is not immediate.

After getting past the error reports I could get to text mode. My card is this:
VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82845G/GL[Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device (rev 03)
The only version of Ubuntu I could get to actually install on this laptop was 9.10 and then it required a custom xorg.conf. Here is a thread detailing the problem:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1358862
With this in mind I'm not sure what the chances are of getting the final version of Statler running on it, as it just seems to be a problematic graphics card.

I could not see anything in the link about upgrading at runlevel 1.
Is there some way I could just install security updates? I'm guessing that most upgrades to things like X are non-security related.

  • Registered: 2008-11-24
  • Posts: 1,858

Re: Upgrades cause X failure

A quick Google search and I now appreciate how difficult your card is to get working in any distro. sad I have Intel graphics as well, and they have given me a lot of grief too. Sorry I don't have specific suggestions! I hope the "upstream" intel driver people get it together... not a problem specific to #! I guess.