Got myself into KDE or PiSi problems I think

[MPvDdB]

Just finished my first hard disk Pardus (2007.1) install ever.

Must say I think this is a really <g> charming distribution.

Being too enthousiastic I did not make a backup first but started "cleaning up" the configuration (it takes a lot of space in the standard install). So I removed the games.

Then I found an Turkish spellchecker entry, which I am never going to use. So I told it to remove that. During the removal (without any warning in advance) I saw worrying reverse dependencies coming along as being removed KDE Utils etc. etc. So I annulled it.

But too late I fear ....

I now see weird marking of selected buttons (a dotted line around the text inside the button frame instead of alternate coloring; grayed out buttons are now with text with a strike through) and if I try to start the package manager PiSI it says:

Unable to run the command specified. The file or folder file:///usr/kde/3.5/share/applications/kde/packagemanager.desktop does not exist.

Am I to understand that uninstalling the Turkish spellchecker (and / or other "applications") can have these kind of devastating effects?

And if so, how do I get out of this jam?

kindest regards
from Leeuwarden, NL
Peter van Dobben de Bruijn

[Jan Gnodde]

I fear, you'll have to re-install Pardus, because you can't be shure which pakages have been uninstalled.
And: why should you uninstall these packages? So save some space on your harddisk? Well, saving 500MB on a 150GB disk: why bother?
But, if you want to install packages: use the (graphical) package-manager, and before uninstalling, first look in you basket to see what other packages will be uninstalled for dependency-reasons.
You should be very carefull!

Jan.

[MPvDdB]

I fear, you'll have to re-install Pardus, because you can't be shure which pakages have been uninstalled.

And: why should you uninstall these packages? So save some space on your harddisk? Well, saving 500MB on a 150GB disk: why bother?

But, if you want to install packages: use the (graphical) package-manager, and before uninstalling, first look in you basket to see what other packages will be uninstalled for dependency-reasons.

You should be very carefull!

Jan.

First off I am very carefull, but .... this is something one cannot be prepared for.

I used the graphical package manager and really do think this is not the responsibility of the user (or systems manager). If there are other pacakages depending on parts of the reverse dependencies which are going to be de-installed the package manager ought to block that. These parts ought to be left alone.

You can try it yourself, on a seperate copy not your production install of course <g>. What I did try to de-install was the Turkisch Spellcheck server. Do you really think that de-installing that should be allowed to de-install essentials for other applications or even KDE itself as KDE-utils etc.? I think it is a real bug if it can be recreated.

Then about the diskspace saved. First this is a 60 GB laptop and filled with a lot of different virtual PC installations for various development projects etc. I managed to free about 10 GB to get Pardus crammed in. It is on a logical partition for root of 4,5 GB filled up to 3,5 GB (with just one user). The /home partition is 2,5 GB and there is a 1 GB /Swap partition.

De-installing the Turkish Spellcheck server which I am never going to use was freeing 1 GB of the 3,5 installed. I think that would be worthwhile but then I did not know it was going to de-install essential other parts of Pardus. I <g> would have loved to keep those ... But in general I like to keep everything as clean as possible. In example: what do I need game-icons (and apps) for competing for my attention when selecting the desktop or using the menu's. I never play games. Reduction is a <g> ZEN-essential, a way of life.

Further I would propose that the repair options of the recovery facilities allow to automatically find what packages are installed, find out what these depend on and which of those are missing and making re-install / recovery automatic instead of making complete re-install necessary.

Just my 2 Eurocents of course .... but based on some years of experience.

kindest regards
from Leeuwarden, NL
Peter van Dobben de Bruijn

[Jan Gnodde]

De-installing the Turkish Spellcheck server which I am never going to use was freeing 1 GB of the 3,5 installed.

Believing that uninstalling one software-package was freeing 1GB? That should at least make you suspicious.
And not checking the basket before realy de-installing isn't carefull.

Jan.

[MPvDdB]

De-installing the Turkish Spellcheck server which I am never going to use was freeing 1 GB of the 3,5 installed.

Believing that uninstalling one software-package was freeing 1GB?

That should at least make you suspicious.
And not checking the basket before realy de-installing isn't carefull.

Jan.

Ah, I offended the beloved OS I fear.

Look at it from the point of view of a normal user ....

A normal user is never going to check anything he or she is assuming that if the GUI offers to de-install a package that is labelled as Turkish Spellcheck SERVER it can be very very big.

If ..... a normal user (Pardus is meant for not-so computer-literate I believe) checks something at all!

You get the offer/facilities to de-install something, you  check and find that it is something you are never going to use so you accept the offer in the GUI with a simple check-mark to de-install. WHAT IS HAPPENING after that? You see de-installation of parts of KDE flashing by (if a normal user knows what KDE is and is even looking) but then it is to late already.

So .... for a normal user (and even some experienced who get overenthousiastic but do not have the time for check and double-check but need to rely on the solid routines build in below the offers the GUI makes) this de-installation (you did check if this is what happens didn't you?) is dysfunctional. It kills parts of the OS that should never be killed, if you ask me.

Essentially NO de-installation should be allowed to de-install anything that is in the dependency list of anything else! Or are we disagreeing on that too?

The remark about not being carefull IS taken as a personal attack, yes.

Perhaps we better stay at the real point: is Pardus allowing users to de-install anything that is in the dependency list of something else?

kindest regards
from Leeuwarden
Peter van Dobben de Bruijn

[meren]

Hi Peter,

Look at it from the point of view of a normal user ....

I think you are completely right about this and hopefully we're gonna fix this in the future releases of package-manager.

We shouldn't expect from anyone to be careful about something like this as developers. Essential parts of the operating system and -at least the package manager itself- should stay operable no matter what (of course unless user decides to remove something from console with "--ignore-dependency").

Thanks to both of you for this discussion and thanks to Béranger for his attention


Best,

[MPvDdB]

Hi Peter,

Look at it from the point of view of a normal user ....

I think you are completely right about this and hopefully we're gonna fix this in the future releases of package-manager.

We shouldn't expect from anyone to be careful about something like this as developers. Essential parts of the operating system and -at least the package manager itself- should stay operable no matter what (of course unless user decides to remove something from console with "--ignore-dependency").

Thanks to both of you for this discussion and thanks to Béranger for his attention :)


Best,

Hi,

No need to thank me.

Pardus is a charming distribution as I wrote, would love to see (and do what I can) it become better. Thanks for picking up on this to Béranger and you (on behalf of the developers?).

From the discussion in http://bugs.pardus.org.tr/show_bug.cgi?id=5309

and comments in other "bugs" (elsewhere these are called <g> "features")  and  Béranger's log (http://beranger.org/index.php?categ=22&offset=0 on 23 March) and other discussions about this I understand that it may take some time (there is a remark that it is more complex than originally expected) before this is discussed to the end and a solution has been created.

May I propose (to save my installed setup without the need to re-install <g>) to look at a solution first for systems that become instable because of missing underlying dependencies (for whatever reason they may have become de-isntalled / inconsistent / corrupted).

Perhaps a script could be written to use during the boot-process or otherwise logged on as root (be it <g> with or without superpower rights - ROTFL) to check the consistency of all  dependency trees and automatically resolve any issues there? Could be a "life-svaer"(or image-saver for Pardus as the friendliest distribution) in other situations (driver-installs failing i.e.) too. Guess that most of the code to re-create and make the dependencies consistent could be taken from the current packages and OS install-scripts.

Just an idea.

kindest regards
from Leeuwarden
Peter van Dobben de Bruijn

[meren]

Hi Peter,

Perhaps a script could be written to use during the boot-process or otherwise logged on as root (be it <g> with or without superpower rights - ROTFL) to check the consistency of all  dependency trees and automatically resolve any issues there? Could be a "life-svaer"(or image-saver for Pardus as the friendliest distribution) in other situations (driver-installs failing i.e.) too.

For a given remove order, PiSi calculates the dependency tree of the package and it's reverse dependencies, then starts removing packages from the most end of the tree in order to satisfy the system consistency. So probably your system is technically consistent but functionally inconsistent because you annulled the process.

(But also you have a point there anyway (to recover/see "--ignore-dependency" removals) and we're gonna add "check-consistency functionality" into our todo list of PiSi. Thanks for the suggestion)

To solve your problem, I would suggest you to login from console as root (press CTRL + ALT + F1 at the login screen) and type this command:

Code:

pisi it kdebase kdeutils tasma network-manager service-manager firewall-config user-manager package-manager disk-manager --reinstall

Everything must be fine again after this. Return to the login screen (by pressing ALT + F7) and login.


Best,

[MPvDdB]

Hi Peter,

For a given remove order, PiSi calculates the dependency tree of the package and it's reverse dependencies, then starts removing packages from the most end of the tree in order to satisfy the system consistency. So probably your system is technically consistent but functionally inconsistent because you annulled the process.

(But also you have a point there anyway (to recover/see "--ignore-dependency" removals) and we're gonna add "check-consistency functionality" into our todo list of PiSi. Thanks for the suggestion)

To solve your problem, I would suggest you to login from console as root (press CTRL + ALT + F1 at the login screen) and type this command:

Code:

pisi it kdebase kdeutils tasma network-manager service-manager firewall-config user-manager package-manager disk-manager --reinstall

Everything must be fine again after this. Return to the login screen (by pressing ALT + F7) and login.


Best,

No need to thank me for the suggestion, glad I can be of help <g>.

Of course this CTRL+ALT+F1 thingy worked, the most difficult part was to remember what had to be typed to the commandline and do so without typing errors <g>. New suggestion: to put this somewhere in the boot (Grub-Menu?) or logon process as a selectable option (something like "Attempt recovery of Base Install).

It is a joy to confer with a team that is so eager to pick up on what they call "bugs" themselves and might be called "features" elsewhere.

Thanks once again. The system looks to be back to operating normally.

Of course <g> the devil is in this word "looks".

I remember the use of that word from an interview of Edsges Dijkstra that went something like "Testing and Debugging? A process of trial and error until it looks like everything is functioning properly."

One could "hear" the despise in his voice when he told the reporter of Computable that I think.

The problem with the "strike-through" menu-options and the selected buttons being surrounded with a dotted-box remained.

But then I remembered I had changed something else: translucency was switched of at a certain point as it was described as sometimes unstable or having side-effects. Once I had found the various options I switched off this has been solved also. Keeping my fingers crossed this NVidea card will not cause trouble there.

Everything looks like being back to normal and as beautifull as it was at the start. Clean interface which looks great.

Thanks once again for the help and creating such a charming distro. Succes with the furthere endeavours and the implementation of user suggestions.

kindest regards
from Leeuwarden, NL
Peter van Dobben de Bruijn