How "should" I manage updates?

jayd3e · 2011-06-02 17:53:11

So I'm pretty frustrated. Today I turned on my laptop, only to find that something, still don't know for sure what, had changed. For some reason X wouldn't start. The interwebs told me to delete my xorg.conf.d directory. This seemed to fix the problem, b/c GDM popped up like always; however, I was then unable to use my mouse & keyboard....... To make matters worse I wasn't able to boot into single user mode, b/c I hadn't set up a single user boot option in GRUB. Long story short, I am really tired of turning on my computer and having a seemingly solid system fall apart before my eyes. I am convinced that this is obviously not due to file corruption, due to the fact that linux uses a journaling fs, but it is simply b/c I installed a faulty driver update on accident by doing a full update through pacman. My question is, how does everyone manage their updates? When you have a system up and running to your liking, do you block off certain repos? How do you know what updates could be potentially fatal, and which ones are harmless?

karol · 2011-06-02 18:10:11

My system is pretty light so I can downgrade the whole xorg-server and friends if I need to.
I don't really have problems with my updates. Sometimes I do need to put some packages into IgnorePkg because I'm running pretty ancient hardware and the drivers aren't always working but a look into the logs will tell me what the problem was.
So what was the problem with your mouse and keyboard? No /etc/X11/xorg.conf.d/10-evdev.conf?

You can set up single user in grub "on the fly": http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/grub-boot- … user-mode/

mhertz · 2011-06-02 18:16:37

I myself don't care if something breaks, as I then either downgrade, or revert my system back from a backup if unbootable...

That's imho the most esential thing possible when administering a system, to _always_ make sure you're fully backupped, so as you've got no problems if something breaks completelly!

karol · 2011-06-02 18:18:04

mhertz wrote:

That's imho the most esential thing possible when administering a system, to _always_ make sure you're fully backupped, so as you've got no problems if something breaks completelly!

And have a liveCD at hand in case it's only a tad broken.

kofrad · 2011-06-03 01:42:19

I personally haven't had issues updating that leave me unbootable. I have a script in cron.daily to sync the package databases, and I generally run a 'clyde -Sua' each morning. Sometimes things will glitch out momentarily until I relogin or reboot but it's nothing major.

I just check the forums for any possible issues before updating system packages or things I don't want to break.

jasonwryan · 2011-06-03 03:09:00

Part of the responsibility of Arch is being prepared to read up on what is happening to packages as they are developed and pushed out.

So "managing updates" means making sure you know what is in the packages you are entering 'Y' to...

A rolling release means that you are always prepared to get your hands dirty (and have the backups to cover any contingencies).

jayd3e · 2011-06-03 03:56:34

How do you backup a system exactly

sand_man · 2011-06-03 04:03:50

jayd3e wrote:

How do you backup a system exactly

Any way you want. Use tar or rsync(preferred). I believe there are specialised front-ends to rsync used for backup purposes if you don't want to write a script.

lukaszan · 2011-06-03 07:03:13

My way:

1. standard pacman -Syu + a lot of IgnorePkg in rc.conf (kernel and drivers I compiled myself, plus a few more manually installed apps and libs)
2. Always checking what is going to be upgraded (and adding anything suspicious to rc.conf)
3. No testing repo

I run updates rarely, as I don't really care about the latest packages. And unfortunately Arch IS releasing packages to eagerly (new kernels within a couple of days of official release ? That is not tested whatsoever...), so you just have to be... carefull

ngoonee · 2011-06-03 07:09:18

lukaszan wrote:

I run updates rarely, as I don't really care about the latest packages. And unfortunately Arch IS releasing packages to eagerly (new kernels within a couple of days of official release ? That is not tested whatsoever...), so you just have to be... carefull

*unfortunately*? I believe that's part of the basic policy of Arch in the first place . Everything gets sign-offs in [arch-dev-public] though (or rather, everything important).

jasonwryan · 2011-06-03 07:12:53

lukaszan wrote:

And unfortunately Arch IS releasing packages to eagerly (new kernels within a couple of days of official release ? That is not tested whatsoever...)

By not tested whatesoever, I assume you mean tested by the devs and all those users that have [testing] enabled and report bugs, submit patches etc and generally contribute to the distribution so that you can run Arch Linux?

Seriously: that statement is as empty of substance as it is ungracious.

lukaszan · 2011-06-03 07:15:20

ngoonee wrote:

lukaszan wrote:
I run updates rarely, as I don't really care about the latest packages. And unfortunately Arch IS releasing packages to eagerly (new kernels within a couple of days of official release ? That is not tested whatsoever...), so you just have to be... carefull
*unfortunately*? I believe that's part of the basic policy of Arch in the first place . Everything gets sign-offs in [arch-dev-public] though (or rather, everything important).

Yes, it is part of Arch philosophy. Unfortunately

I'm probably trying to say 2 things: this is the only thing I personally don't like about Arch, and the packages could do with a little bit more testing. I mean, do you really need the newest packages the very next day ??

lukaszan · 2011-06-03 07:19:58

jasonwryan wrote:

lukaszan wrote:
And unfortunately Arch IS releasing packages to eagerly (new kernels within a couple of days of official release ? That is not tested whatsoever...)
By not tested whatesoever, I assume you mean tested by the devs and all those users that have [testing] enabled and report bugs, submit patches etc and generally contribute to the distribution so that you can run Arch Linux?
Seriously: that statement is as empty of substance as it is ungracious.

Most distros need a at least a few weeks to release a new kernel. Arch needs a few days. And being a porgrammer myself, I seriously doubt it's due to extensive, but efficient testing.

Anyway, seems like I kicked a hornets nest here, so I'll pass...

Last edited by lukaszan (2011-06-03 07:20:22)

adee · 2011-06-03 08:48:53

And what is enough testing means? It depends... If you're not using testing, you won't get 0-day updates. If you want to update once per half year, choose debian stable.

ataraxia · 2011-06-03 14:59:47

jasonwryan wrote:

Part of the responsibility of Arch is being prepared to read up on what is happening to packages as they are developed and pushed out.
So "managing updates" means making sure you know what is in the packages you are entering 'Y' to...
A rolling release means that you are always prepared to get your hands dirty (and have the backups to cover any contingencies).

I'd say another part of the responsibility of Arch is having a plan for what you'll do if your system does break. Hopefully, that plan does not involve panic or a knee-jerk reinstall.

The stronger your system-fixing skills are, the less caution you need to exercise before updating.

I also have to wonder what's going on when I see so many "my system is broken" posts on this forum, on a regular basis, and yet, I've never hit a showstopper problem in 4 years of Arch. Do I just expect less of my systems, thus redefining "broken"? Am I just now using the troublemaker packages?

jayd3e · 2011-06-03 18:04:45

So I plan on setting up a cron job of some sort to backup my system with rsync. Should I copy my entire filesystem to a backup drive, or just my home folder? I am thinking that I want to backup everything, so if I install a faulty package I can get my whole system back by restoring a snapshot, but that would take up a lot of disk space. Any thoughts?

lukaszan · 2011-06-03 19:28:38

Home folder won't help you if you break your system, it only contains your personal settings. You need to back up whole / .

Varg · 2011-06-03 19:38:26

jayd3e wrote:

To make matters worse I wasn't able to boot into single user mode, b/c I hadn't set up a single user boot option in GRUB.

You can temporarily edit your GRUB entries during boot. Just select the entry that you want with your arrow keys en press 'e' instead of 'enter'. Then you can select the kernel line, press 'e' again and put a 3 at the end of the line, 'enter' and then 'b' to boot.
That's what I always used when I booted into init5 and X failed.

When something is really messed up and the machine doesn't boot at all I go for a live cd/usb.

jayd3e · 2011-06-04 02:22:23

Varg: thanks, that is a really helpful tip.

So I reinstalled, dual-booted windows, and have everything up and running now. I have isolated the problem. The newest nvidia drivers break X. I would simply go without the aforementioned nvidia drivers, but there is some graphical tearing going on that I would like to fix. I am now just running off of libgl. Now that I know which packages cause the problems, can I use pacman to install some older drivers?

jnguyen · 2011-06-04 06:44:19

lukaszan wrote:

Most distros need a at least a few weeks to release a new kernel. Arch needs a few days. And being a porgrammer myself, I seriously doubt it's due to extensive, but efficient testing.

For anyone reading this thread, I would like to note that the above statements are false.

It's true that new kernel releases hit [testing] within hours or days, but users wanting a stable system should not have [testing] enabled.

Usually the kernel package will take around a month before it gets moved to [core], often with one or two bugfix kernels (e.g. 2.8.39.1) having been released.

Last edited by jnguyen (2011-06-04 06:46:21)

jasonwryan · 2011-06-04 06:53:21

ataraxia wrote:

I also have to wonder what's going on when I see so many "my system is broken" posts on this forum, on a regular basis, and yet, I've never hit a showstopper problem in 4 years of Arch. Do I just expect less of my systems, thus redefining "broken"? Am I just now using the troublemaker packages?

I'd say that you are obviously more comfortable with the your system and capable of reacting to anomalies without panicking (which is what most of the "OMG, my system is broken" type posts are)...

I think it is a credit to the devs that despite pushing out new packages at a formidable rate, Arch is actually incredibly stable. I have yet to encounter any breakage - as opposed to (well documented and publicized) changes. Generally if something doesn't work as it has, a quick skim of the {boards,ML} quickly sets things right.

karol · 2011-06-04 07:05:51

@jayd3e
Read the wiki on dowgrading packages and open a new thread about the nvidia driver problem.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-06-02 17:53:11

How "should" I manage updates?

#2 2011-06-02 18:10:11

Re: How "should" I manage updates?

#3 2011-06-02 18:16:37

Re: How "should" I manage updates?

#4 2011-06-02 18:18:04

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#5 2011-06-03 01:42:19

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#6 2011-06-03 03:09:00

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#7 2011-06-03 03:56:34

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#8 2011-06-03 04:03:50

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#11 2011-06-03 07:12:53

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#12 2011-06-03 07:15:20

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#13 2011-06-03 07:19:58

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#14 2011-06-03 08:48:53

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#15 2011-06-03 14:59:47

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#16 2011-06-03 18:04:45

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#22 2011-06-04 07:05:51

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