[H-GEN] oops - debian unstable woes

[Jason Parker-Burlingham]

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Sandra Milne <silne at optusnet.com.au> writes:

> Fiance installed debian last night. Got it all working exactly as he
> wanted it, but for zangband which wants gcc3.2 to compile. So, because
> gcc3.2 is in unstable, he did a dist-upgrade. X-Windows has not worked
> since. He just gets a black screen and the monitor switches to
> stand-by -- no signal.

People who dist-upgrade to fix a problem with just one package deserve
what they get.

> We got into single user mode and removed gdm and kdm from startup, so
> that he can boot to a console. That's all fine and good, it boots
> ok. We had suspected a problem with gdm/kdm but when launching startx
> from the console the same thing happens.

Sounds like the X server configuration is somehow incorrect.

> Nvidia GeForce 2MX400 using the Geforce driver for xfree86 v4. (I
> think this is nv). The thing is, it worked fine until X was restarted
> after the upgrade. We re-ran xf86config and set it all up again, but
> still no joy.

Why use xf86config?  The debconf frontend for X works just fine.

$ head -15 /etc/X11/XF86Config-4
### BEGIN DEBCONF SECTION
# XF86Config-4 (XFree86 server configuration file) generated by dexconf, the
# Debian X Configuration tool, using values from the debconf database.
#
# Edit this file with caution, and see the XF86Config-4 manual page.
# (Type "man XF86Config-4" at the shell prompt.)
#
# If you want your changes to this file preserved by dexconf, only make changes
# before the "### BEGIN DEBCONF SECTION" line above, and/or after the
# "### END DEBCONF SECTION" line below.
#
# To change things within the debconf section, run the command:
#   dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xfree86
# as root.  Also see "How do I add custom sections to a dexconf-generated
# XF86Config or XF86Config-4 file?" in /usr/share/doc/xfree86-common/FAQ.gz.

> Has anyone experienced this? Brendan doesn't want to go through and
> setup debian all over again now that he's got all his settings just
> how he likes them.

Good lord, why would you do *that*?

Okay.  Enough narkiness[1].  Some concrete suggestions:

> Is there an easy way to roll-back to stable?

Not really, no.  At least not as far as I know.

> Or is this a known issue that will be resolved in a couple of days
> and he can just sit tight and wait for the update?

Try checking the Bug Tracking System,
http://bugs.debian.org/xserver-xfree86 .  Unfortunately this package
is both large and widely used, so it often has a large list of bugs,
only some of which you should pay attention to.  Look for recently
reported bugs, look for well-written reports and responses from the
maintainer.

Next, start checking your X server config file into RCS.  You *will*
be glad you did this, and how!  If you don't know RCS:

$ cd /etc/X11
$ sudo mkdir RCS
$ sudo ci -l XF86Confg-4
[type a description of what the file is]
$ # make changes with dpkg-reconfigure, vi, emacs, xf86config,
  # whatever.
$ sudo ci -l XF86Config-4 # when you have a version you want to save.

Read the fine manual for rcs, ci, and co when you need to know how to
get some revision back.  Oh, and liberal use of rcslog -v <file> is
also illuminating.

As a piece of future-proofing advice, I think you should have taken
more time to diagnose the problem with gcc and zangband, and perhaps
installed a different version of gcc (say 2.95) first, instead of
blithely upgrading and just hoping things will be okay.  They rarely
are (but of course sometimes a wholesale upgrade is warranted).

I hope this is useful for you somehow.

jason

[1] : $ nethack -s all | $EDITOR
      No  Points     Name                                   Hp [max]
       1    2660620  Drick-Pri-Hum-Mal-Neu died on the Astral Plane. 
                     Killed by Pestilence (with the Amulet). - [225]
-- 
||----|---|------------|--|-------|------|-----------|-#---|-|--|------||
| ``I think I'm going to throw up.''                                    |
|                                             -- Kermit the Frog, Yambo |
||--|--------|--------------|----|-------------|------|---------|-----|-|

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