No GUI after failed urpmi software install
 

Hi all;

Using Mandriva 2006 and this is my first linux installation. Went to easy urpmi site and generated script to add plf and other mirrors. Went to root in console and put in the script and it installed all the urpmi info and I "urpmi kaffeine" as I wanted the updated version.

urpmi found kaffeine and started install of about 242 items. Hung up at the end and couldn't install "libX11.so.6" with tagline of "Unable to access hdlist file of installation CD1 thru CD3." GUI very slow, chunky and wouldn't allow me to start any other application so I did a reboot.

After reboot Mandriva starts me at a command line and I've lost my GUI interface. I'm guessing that the library is necessary not only for kaffeine but for the GUI as well.

Also guessing that if I can somehow install the "libX11.so.6" that is on one of the install CD's then I will be good to go and it will restart o.k. So now I'm stuck. Do I need to issue some sort of urpmi command to make the system find and use the install CD's again?? I guess when I put in the script from easy urpmi to find the stuff on the net that it wiped out the reference to the original install cd's. Trying to urpmi libx11.so.6 references right back to the hdlist part. Any help is G R E A T F U L L Y appreciated!! :scratch:

Been a long while since I used Mandriva - so this is best guess/what I'd do in the same situation.

Say "bollocks" to the current install. Boot the install disc(s) and re-install. That gets you up and running.

Then when you are at that stage, go to the easy URPMI site, add repositories for everything i.e. main, contrib, plf etc etc. But before you do anything else, open the software manager and remove the CD sources - if you have repos/mirrors for everthing then all the packages are there and available - the ones on the CD will be out of date, hence your experience of some 242 (or however many it was) packages when you tried to install kaffeine - most of that will be updates to outdated packages from the CD's (you don't actually have to remove the CD sources - just uncheck/disable them).

Sorry I can't be more specific - there are lots of CLI things you can do if you know how and where the instructions and commands are. I never used to do it that way, only graphically.

regards

John

p.s. just had a quick look at easy urpmi - and I'd get repo's/mirrors for the lot, main, contrib, updates, backports (all), plf-free and plf-nonfree. Once you have the system installed I used to find the CD sources more of a hinderance than a help (you can alway put one of them in and mount it too look for packages there - but I can assure you, if it isn't in one of the repo's, then it's very unlikely that it'll be on one of the CD's).

Of course, it makes sense to try to use repo's/mirrors that are closest to your geographical location. You'll find that it's trial and error though - I always found that the UK mirror was slow (except at really strange times of the night) and would usually set repo's/mirrors for Dutch, German, French and Norwegian locations (mixing and matching, but never the same address twice - e.g. two of them might be located in Paris, but I'd use both of the addresses, not just one for two sources) - so I'm guessing that you'd have to try different US ones - it might just not be the closest ones that are the fastest, even though logic says that that should be correct!

O.K. and thanks for the advice. That's my fallback position and if I have to reinstall I will do it that way as you suggested. With all the various mirrors that urpmi installed I would of thought that this library "libX11.so.6" would of been on one of the online sites but the OS is looking for it in the installation cd's. Perhaps if I totally remove those cd's it would force it to look for it on the net.

I'm on my notebook at work so I have not been able to try it yet but I did come across a command to rebuild the database "rm -f /var/lib/rpm/__db* && rpm --rebuilddb" hopefully that might do the trick. I'll try that and some other ideas when I get home. I've only had the system running for 4 days so it's no big deal if I have to start over from scratch. I'm so sick of WinXP or any microsoft products for that matter that I am totally dedicated to learning this operating system. I'm really hoping to get the OS to find the library, urpmi install and then reboot and with any luck I will be up and running again.

Before reinstalling, I think you should try to fix the problem. Since its a borked update and you want only the repos from the net to be used, do
Your urpmi sources will be listed, remove the ones you don't want by doing
After that do
Hopefully that will update you urpmi sources and continue the update and install the required packages for you system to function properly.

Well done reddazz, that was the kind of stuff that I just couldn't remember - debian based sidux now "rules my roost".

Yours is a far more elegant solution!

regards

John

p.s. erm, how long you been modding ? I didn't see the promotion listed - but then again, I hang around some other places more these days.

After playing around with some of the command lines and not getting much of anywhere I just decided to take Big John's advice and do a reinstall. I reinstalled over the existing partitions and did individual package selection this time so I got more bang for the buck anyway. In addition since I went over the original partition I kept most of the changes that I had made from the stock GUI. Wallpapers, behavior, icon set, ect so I didn't lose that much.

I also disabled the installation cd's from the software manager and am exclusively using online content so hopefully that will solve my problem. As I learn more about this OS I wouldn't handle it like this but you have to walk before you can run. Thanks again for the kind help and assistance. :)

I've been a mod for about 6 months or maybe just a bit longer. I mainly hang around in Linux Software and its subforums.