Brian Coiley wrote:
I ran the distribution update again, having taken Maurits' advice to make
sure that I first did an apt-get update. It updated over 200 packages!
Running it a further time updates nothing, so I assume it is all done now.
So you did:
# apt-get update (and it updated your list of available packages without errors?)
# apt-get dist-upgrade (and it upgrades your system without errors?)
WHAT IT FIXED:
=============
Not a lot really. It still fails to automatically get a DHCP lease.
However, the script "dhclient" now works, so I no longer have to find and
run one of the kernel-specific underlying dhclient commands. So, by running
"dhclient", I can easily get a DHCP lease and hence a network connection,
but for some reason it will not do so automatically (something that it did
quite happily with Woody).
Below you state that you got this fixed by putting the relevant info in /etc/network/interfaces. It's beyond me why this info wasn't already there. Something went wrong with your ugprade.
Did I understand you to say above that a repeated run of "apt-get dist-upgrade" resulted in no errors? If you got any errors, that might be relevant.WHAT IT BROKE:
==============
Last night, at about 1:00 a.m., I finally got X and Gnome working, except
for a minor glitch with keyboard layout (see earlier post). The re-run of
the distribution update has now broken it. Issuing "startx" now results in
a totally blank screen (I mean COMPLETELY blank, like I turned the monitor
off). Ctrl-Alt-bkspace takes me back to the command prompt, where I observe
the following error: "client 5 rejected from local host". A trawl of the
archives suggests editing the /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xdm/xdm-config and changing
"DisplayManager*authorize: true" to "false". I tried that, but it made no
difference. So, as seems to be entirely typical of this environment, I try
to fix one problem, and something else breaks!
I would suggest trying a simple window manager, like icewm, until things get working right.
# apt-get install icewm
Then edit/create ~/.xinitrc and put in the single line "icewm". Now try "startx". What happens?
Also, look in /var/log/XFree86.0.log for any errors (mostly lines starting with (EE)).
My sources.list file currently reads:
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ sarge main contrib non-free deb http://security.debian.org/ sarge/updates main
That looks okay to me, except I think you might want to add "contrib non-free" to the end of your security line. But that's not what's causing your problems.
I would like to say that installs/upgrades are normally not this hard. Something went horribly wrong somewhere, and you're stuck picking up the pieces. Ideally you would have started with Sarge instead of Woody, but apparently you followed the documentation on the Debian web site that pointed you to Woody, which of course seems to be the sensible thing to do. It'll be a good thing when Sarge is released as Stable.Yours in total frustration, about to hurl computer through window...
Brian
OK, I've fixed the DHCP thing with the help of much Googling. The following lines were missing from the file /etc/network/interfaces:
auto eth0 iface eth0 inet dhcp
So, back to the once-working-but-now-broken X: all suggestions gratefully received!
Thanks
Brian
Still, an upgrade should not have broken this badly. I don't know that we'll ever know what went wrong, but something did, in a big way. However, you're getting close now.
Until you get X working, did you know you can still browse the web and do email from the console?
# apt-get install links lynx
will give you two text-mode web browsers.
# apt-get install mutt
will give you a text-based email client. If you have a POP service, you can also install fetchmail to pop that mail to your local machine, and then mutt can read it. If you have an IMAP service, you can use mutt in IMAP mode like so:
# mutt -f {mail.clara.co.uk}Inbox(assuming mail.clara.co.uk is your mail server), and Inbox is the name of your inbox on that server).
Granted, you'll probably like having a GUI better, but this might make you feel a little better about your box until you can get to that point.
About X; try
# apt-get install x-window-system gnome kde icewm
and see what that does for you.
-- Kent
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