Brian,

apt-get dist-upgrade worked, and I have the latest new shiney gnome 3 desktop. However, I may have to get a new laptop, as the desktop really spins the fan on my laptop - it uses about 75% of the CPU at times.

aptitude upgrade now does not hang on dependencies, but shows the system is all uptodate. 

However, I still have the depmod warning, but I googled it an it looks like it may be benign. 

Thanks for the help!

Mark


On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 6:45 PM, Mark Phillips <mark@phillipsmarketing.biz> wrote:
Brian,

Well that was fun....I had one failure and one warning...

[FAIL] Starting NFS common utilities: statd failed! - I don't use NFS, so not sure why this is happening

depmod: WARNING: could not open /var/tmp/mkinitramfs_RMlg1E/lib/modules/3.1.0-1-amd64/modules.builtin: No such file or directory

The warning looks serious. However, a reboot after the apt-get upgrade returned gnome 3 as the default desktop. 

However, aptitude is still very confused and cannot resolve all the dependencies. 

Should I go for broke and try an apt-get dist-upgrade, or be happy with my current situation and just use apt-get? I feel as if I am pushing my luck! ;)

Mark



On Wed, Mar 5, 2014 at 6:18 PM, Mark Phillips <mark@phillipsmarketing.biz> wrote:

Brian,

Thanks for the suggestions.

I solved one problem - the messed up laptop keyboard. It seems the num lock was engaged, but the light was not on to indicate that num lock was set. Once I turned off num lock, the laptop keyboard works as it should.

apt-get -f install did nothing...it said all packages were uptodate.

Trying apt-get upgrade first.......

Mark

On Mar 4, 2014 10:36 AM, "Brian Cluff" <brian@snaptek.com> wrote:
It sounds like your upgrade didn't finish and has left your computer broken.  I believe all you need to do is get your system to complete it's upgrade and all will be well again.

I would definitely try using apt-get... try "apt-get -f install" to start and see if it will fix any of the missing packages.  Then follow that with and "apt-get dist-upgrade" to hopefully finish the upgrade.

You might find that the dependencies are in a state that you will have to hand install and/or downgrade certain packages using dpkg to get the system back into a place where apt can pick up and finish the install. If you haven't done an apt-get clean or aptitude clean recently then you will likely find older and newer versions of packages in /var/cache/apt/archives/ have can be fed to dpkg.

I also recommend ditching aptitude.  Years ago it looked like it was going to take over for apt but it never did.  In fact many of the utilities that switched to aptitude switched back to apt.  I've found that I tended to break systems quite often when I used aptitude but apt remained solid and has since picked up the majority of extra features that aptitude used to has.

Brian

On 03/03/2014 07:24 PM, Mark Phillips wrote:
I am running Debian testing on my laptop. I use my laptop in two
configurations - stand alone and with an external monitor and bluetooth
keyboard and mouse. Everything was working in that I could switch back
and forth as needed.

I then had a need to write a bunch of documents/emails in German so I
tried to add a German keyboard mapping and dictionary to the system. I
was successful and could switch back and forth between German and
English in LibreOffice and Gmail using the external keyboard.

I then ran an aptitude update and then an upgrade and the world collapsed.
* I no longer have gnome 3, but a fall back version of gnome 2.

* I can type correctly with the external keyboard, but the keyboard on
the laptop is all messed up. The keys do not type what is printed on the
keys.

* I don't have a German keyboard mapping any more.

I googled for some solutions, ran some dpkg-reconfigures but I just
cannot get the laptop keyboard to work properly, nor get back to gnome
3. When I run an aptitude update and then upgrade now, I get this

# aptitude upgrade
Resolving dependencies...
open: 8922; closed: 14679; defer: 68; conflict: 194

and the conflicts are never resolved - the numbers just keep changing
and the cpus are pegged at 100%.

apt-get upgrade shows many packages to be upgraded, and does not report
any dependency issues.

Should I try apt-get upgrade to see if it fixes the problem? How do I go
about fixing the keyboard and gnome 3 issues?

Thanks,

Mark





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