[SOLVED] Latest slackpkg ugrade-all seems to have broken printing and libreoffice

arubin · 09-15-2022, 04:48 PM

Having just done an upgrade using slackpkg I seem to have lost libreoffice and cups printing.

Running libreoffice --writer from the command line I get a quick splash screen then nothing and no error message.
Nothing seems to print including testpages from cups.
The upgrade seemed to be installing glib packages.

Help please!

kgha · 09-15-2022, 05:07 PM

Are you running .current? If so, it's probably due to the aaa_libraries upgrade which removed an older boost library.
If so, installing AlienBob's boost-compat package will sort this.

arubin · 09-15-2022, 05:21 PM

No I am running 15

arubin · 09-15-2022, 05:31 PM

Is it possible that I am using slackpg wrong and upgrading to current by mistake? I have never intended to use current

kgha · 09-16-2022, 01:59 AM

Yes, it's possible if you by mistake have chosen a Slackware64-current mirror when uncommenting one (and only one) mirror in your /etc/slackpkg/mirrors file. The mirrors are listed in two sections; the one for Slackware-15 starts on line 49, the one for current on line 190. Take a look at the /var/lib/pkgtools/packages folder: which packages were upgraded yesterday? If the new packages are those mentioned in the slackware64-15.0 changelog, you're OK - if not, you're using the wrong mirror.

Which LibreOffice version and package do you use: AlienBob's, or built with SBo from source, or built with SBo from the -rpm binaries - or something else?

arubin · 09-16-2022, 03:32 AM

It will have to wait till I'm home. I certainly did not update that long list of packages in the changelog.
/var/lib/pkgtools/packages when I checked it indicated that some glib and gcc packages had been upgraded but I can't see why, as far as I can see no new patches have been released. I am using AlienBob's libreoffice and tried upgrading that to his 7.4 package but that made no difference.

All I know is that I was using libreoffice. Ran a slackpkg upgrade and after that found that I couldn't print. Tried restarting the PC but then found that libreoffice would not start and printing still not working. CUPS sends test pages and the jobs seem to go through but the printer doesn't respond. (My laptop with a similar slackware installation prints fine on the same networked printer)

Something seems to have broken and the upgrades made by slackpkg seem to be the obvious candidate. I would like to revert to how things were before the upgrade or at least have some clue how to investigate this.

marav · 09-16-2022, 03:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arubin

It will have to wait till I'm home. I certainly did not update that long list of packages in the changelog.
/var/lib/pkgtools/packages when I checked it indicated that some glib and gcc packages had been upgraded but I can't see why, as far as I can see no new patches have been released. I am using AlienBob's libreoffice and tried upgrading that to his 7.4 package but that made no difference.

All I know is that I was using libreoffice. Ran a slackpkg upgrade and after that found that I couldn't print. Tried restarting the PC but then found that libreoffice would not start and printing still not working. CUPS sends test pages and the jobs seem to go through but the printer doesn't respond. (My laptop with a similar slackware installation prints fine on the same networked printer)

Something seems to have broken and the upgrades made by slackpkg seem to be the obvious candidate. I would like to revert to how things were before the upgrade or at least have some clue how to investigate this.

If glibc & gcc has been upgraded, you're not on Slackware 15.0, but on -current
The versions are frozen in slackware 15.0 to :
glibc 2.33
gcc 11.2

kgha · 09-16-2022, 03:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arubin

... /var/lib/pkgtools/packages when I checked it indicated that some glib and gcc packages had been upgraded but I can't see why, as far as I can see no new patches have been released...

This indeed suggests that your /etc/slackpkg/mirrors file points at a -current repository, since as far as I can see there haven't been any gcc or glibc upgrades to slackware-15.0 since the release in January.

With luck, you can revert by running the following after editing your /etc/slackpkg/mirrors file so that it points at a slackware-15 mirror:

Code:

slackpkg update
slackpkg install-new
slackpkg upgrade-all
slackpkg clean-system

NB: clean-system will remove 3rd party packages unless they're blacklisted. There might also be changes to configuration files that may want or need customising.

EDIT: This thread might be helpful: https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...le-4175708677/

Petri Kaukasoina · 09-16-2022, 03:54 AM

You have "Distribution: Slackware64 15.0 (multilib)". Multilib means you have replaced the stock gcc and glibc packages with alien's corresponding multilib packages. If you did not blacklist them in /etc/slackpkg/blacklist, slackpkg "upgraded" them to the regular ones, as expected.

This does not explain why libreoffice stopped working, though.

kgha · 09-16-2022, 04:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Petri Kaukasoina

You have "Distribution: Slackware64 15.0 (multilib)". Multilib means you have replaced the stock gcc and glibc packages with alien's corresponding multilib packages. If you did not blacklist them in /etc/slackpkg/blacklist, slackpkg "upgraded" them to the regular ones, as expected.

Good point. From https://wiki.alienbase.nl/doku.php?i...kware:multilib :

Quote:

If you use a package manager like slackpkg you will have to add all the glibc and gcc package names to its package blacklist. If you do not take this precaution, you run the risk of your package manager accidentally replacing your multilib versions with Slackware's original pure 64-bit versions!
If you run Slackware 13.37 or newer, then slackpkg supports regular expressions in the blacklist file. In that case, a single line in /etc/slackpkg/blacklist will be enough to blacklist all of my packages (including multilib gcc and glibc packages and all compat32 packages):

Code:

[0-9]+alien
[0-9]+compat32

On the other hand, if you are using the slackpkg extension called slackpkg+ then you should definitely not blacklist these packages, because that prevents slackpkg+ from managing them!

kermitdafrog8 · 09-16-2022, 05:51 AM

Did you restart rc.cups? I recently had to to get printing working again.

I'm on current.

arubin · 09-16-2022, 10:55 AM

Ok,
the only uncommented line in mirrors is

Quote:

http://slackware.uk/slackware/slackware64-15.0/

and in slackpkgplus

Quote:

MIRRORPLUS['slackpkgplus']=https://slakfinder.org/slackpkg+15/

These are the files that were upgraded by slackpkg yesterday

Quote:

vim-gvim-9.0.0417-x86_64-1_slack15.0
vim-9.0.0417-x86_64-1_slack15.0
glibc-profile-2.33-x86_64-5
glibc-i18n-2.33-x86_64-5
glibc-2.33-x86_64-5
gcc-objc-11.2.0-x86_64-2
gcc-go-11.2.0-x86_64-2
gcc-gnat-11.2.0-x86_64-2
gcc-gfortran-11.2.0-x86_64-2
gcc-gdc-11.2.0-x86_64-2
gcc-g++-11.2.0-x86_64-2
gcc-brig-11.2.0-x86_64-2
gcc-11.2.0-x86_64-2
aaa_glibc-solibs-2.33-x86_64-5

So I don't know what is happening there.
Libreoffice is now working after another reboot.

Printing is still not working. I suspect I need to re-install the multilib packages. I think my Brother printer drivers need multilib.

arubin · 09-16-2022, 11:01 AM

So I re-installed the alien multilib gcc and glib and printing is now working.
I guess I should mark this solved but there is still a mystery why slackpkg did what it did. I suspect I should blacklist them even though I am using slackpkgplus.

Tonus · 09-16-2022, 04:58 PM

I would check the man pages to set repo priorities for packages.

arubin · 09-17-2022, 05:27 PM

Here is what I think happened.

On 8 September I ran slackpkg and it upgraded slackpkg+.
Carelessly, I allowed it to overwrite the slackpkgplus.conf file so I lost my multilib repo settings.
On 15 September I ran slackpkg. It didn't see any multilib setting so re-installed 64 bit glib, gcc etc. This probably messed up my printing. I am not sure why libreoffice was affected but I wonder if trying to print from libreoffice caused a problem in that I was subsequently unable to rerun it.