Help, broken Debian after nvidia drivers install

hongman · 10-18-2014, 04:35 PM

Hi all

Some of you may recall my recent thread on choosing a distro. I went with Debian Wheezy.

All was good, until I installed the Nvidia drivers. I followed these:

https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphi...eezy-backports
https://wiki.debian.org/NvidiaGraphicsDrivers#configure

It all completed fine however, seem to have broken a few things.

1. Startx does not happen automatically anymore. I have to log in on command line and manually execute startx. I tried browsing some directories but cant find the right one to add startx to.

2. Network-Manager seems to be broken (gone) so no network access

3. I haven't looked into too much but the menu is definitely missing stuff now!

4. What else would I have broken...

Thinking back (it was late and I was tired) I think at one point when installing the nvidia drivers, it REMOVED a crap load of stuff. Possibly after updating kernel. I'm guessing the "new" kernel is incompatibl with a lot of stuff hence broke it or something. Obviously didnt realise this was going to happen and by the time I noticed it, too late.

k3lt01 · 10-18-2014, 06:29 PM

Lets go through them 1 by 1 shall we.
1. Does starx work ok when you manually start it from the cli?
2. No network access, how do you intend on getting the packages you accidentally allowed it to remove? This is the crunch factor, if you have no network access you either use the installation CD/DVD to reinstall the missing packages or you just do a complete reinstall.
3. If you haven't looked it is no use telling us, we can't help if you can't help us to help you.
4. Absolutely no idea.

Did you install from backports?Backports is pretty stable but it does have a warning.

Quote:

Originally Posted by http://backports.debian.org/Instructions/

Backports cannot be tested as extensively as Debian stable, and backports are provided on an as-is basis, with risk of incompatibilities with other components in Debian stable. Use with care!

It is always best to upgrade, or add new more recent features when in a lucid (no not Ubuntu Lucid) state of mind.

My suggestion is, and it is basically to save time and energy because we could fluff around for days and not get anywhere, to simply do a complete reinstall and be careful when upgrading next time, especially if using backports.

hongman · 10-18-2014, 06:56 PM

[QUOTE=k3lt01;5255783]Lets go through them 1 by 1 shall we.
1. Does starx work ok when you manually start it from the cli?
2. No network access, how do you intend on getting the packages you accidentally allowed it to remove? This is the crunch factor, if you have no network access you either use the installation CD/DVD to reinstall the missing packages or you just do a complete reinstall.
3. If you haven't looked it is no use telling us, we can't help if you can't help us to help you.
4. Absolutely no idea.
/QUOTE]

I have made some progress but in answer to your questions as it may help others:

1. Yes
2. Hard wired into router, brought up eth0, and obtained DHCP (ifconfig eth0 up, dhclient eth0)
3. Well I have so far noticed that the Applications menu is shorter than it was before, however the only category I know that is definitely missing is Games. Now this in itself is not a problem as I was going to remove it anyway. It also removed network-manager (which I managed to reinstall via apt now), begs the question what else did it remove which I may not have yet noticed!
4. As 3.

I have solved 1, quick google search once connectivity was back saw to that.

Understood about backports, however this was a necessity to get the things I wanted. Will perhaps do a dry run next time I do kernel headers or at least not close the term window so I can see what was done!

Also noticed dconf-tools was removed as was Mozilla Flash Plugin.

I guess I will just have to keep plugging along and see.

Already done apt-get update/upgrade which downloaded some new packages.

Thanks

k3lt01 · 10-18-2014, 07:26 PM

If you have synaptic installed my recommendation would be to open synaptic, go to the "Custom Filters" tab on the bottom left corner, click on "Missing Recommends" in the top left corner and let it install everything that is listed.
Check screenshot to see what I mean.

ondoho · 10-19-2014, 05:20 AM

hongman, your last post indicates that everything is working now, no?

as for the missing apps in the menu, if you accidentally uninstalled lots of things, that's kind of understandable, no?

but i'd like to point out another thing - now i did not read your previous thread - but not all grpahic driver issues require backporting. there's (proprietary) nvidia drivers for debian wheezy/stable, too.
backporting is usually a quick suggestion someone might make if they're either lazy or the original poster didn't supply enough information.

hongman · 10-19-2014, 03:18 PM

Hey guys

Under missing recommended, theres a whole bunch of stuff. The ones I am not sure about:

nvidia-kernel-source
nvidia-glx

Should I install these??

hongman · 10-19-2014, 05:34 PM

Is there an easy way to output to text the missing packages list?

JeremyBoden · 10-19-2014, 07:09 PM

I've learned from bitter experience that (in general) its a really bad idea to upgrade or touch graphics drivers - unless you have a specific reason to do so.

I have a 1GB nvidia card - but it works OK with the nouveau drivers, so it won't get a driver upgrade.
If I played games, I might risk an upgrade (after taking a full backup).

Code:

lspci

shows that I have a video card at 01:00.0.

Code:

lspci -v -s 01:00.0

yields the current driver on the last line:-

Quote:

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT218 [GeForce 210] (rev a2) (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
Subsystem: eVga.com. Corp. Device 1313
Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
Memory at d0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16M]
Memory at b0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
Memory at c0000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=32M]
I/O ports at a000 [size=128]
Expansion ROM at d1000000 [disabled] [size=512K]
Capabilities: <access denied>
Kernel driver in use: nouveau

hongman · 10-19-2014, 08:38 PM

Haha, broke some more. I'm an idiot. Part of the learning process right?

I went to install Wifite. Added deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian jessie main to my sources.

Installed, and it again removed a LOAD of stuff.

I'm now in dependency hell.

Rather than reinstall (which i really dont want to do) I would like to learn how to fix this.

Rather than try to recall what I have done to try and resolve I'll post the output of some commands:

Sources.list:

Code:

deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main non-free contrib
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy main non-free contrib
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian wheezy-backports main
deb http://http.debian.net/debian/ wheezy-backports main contrib non-free
deb http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://security.debian.org/ wheezy/updates main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian wheezy main
# deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian squeeze main
# deb http://packages.linuxmint.com debian import
# deb http://ftp.de.debian.org/debian jessie main
# wheezy-updates, previously known as 'volatile'
deb http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib non-free
deb-src http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy-updates main contrib non-free

apt-get update

Code:

...
W: Duplicate sources.list entry http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/ wheezy/main amd64 Packages (/var/lib/apt/lists/ftp.uk.debian.org_debian_dists_wheezy_main_binary-amd64_Packages)
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems

apt-get install -f

Code:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  gstreamer0.10-pulseaudio liba52-0.7.4 libaa1 libass4 libavc1394-0 libavutil51 libcddb2 libcdio13 libcrystalhd3 libdc1394-22 libdca0
  libdirac-decoder0 libdirac-encoder0 libdvbpsi7 libdvdnav4 libdvdread4 libebml3 libenca0 libfaad2 libfftw3-3 libgsm1 libiso9660-8
  libjack-jackd2-0 libkate1 liblircclient0 libmad0 libmatroska5 libmodplug1 libmp3lame0 libmpcdec6 libmpeg2-4 libmtp-common libmtp-runtime
  libmtp9 libnotify4 libopencore-amrnb0 libopencore-amrwb0 libpostproc52 libproxy0 libraw1394-11 libresid-builder0c2a
  libschroedinger-1.0-0 libsdl-image1.2 libshout3 libsidplay2 libspeex1 libspeexdsp1 libswscale2 libsystemd-daemon0 libtag1-vanilla
  libtag1c2a libtar0 libtwolame0 libupnp6 libva-x11-1 libva1 libvcdinfo0 libvlc5 libvlccore5 libvo-aacenc0 libvo-amrwbenc0 libvpx1
  libwebp2 libwebrtc-audio-processing-0 libx264-123 libxcb-composite0 libxcb-keysyms1 libxcb-randr0 libxcb-xfixes0 libxcb-xv0
  libzvbi-common libzvbi0 pulseaudio-utils rtkit vlc-data
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

apt-get install nautilus (which was removed by wifite tragedy, as well as others)

Code:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 nautilus : Depends: libgnome-desktop-3-2 (>= 3.2.0) but it is not going to be installed
            Recommends: brasero (>= 2.26) but it is not going to be installed
            Recommends: gvfs-backends but it is not going to be installed
            Recommends: gnome-sushi but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

If I try to install nautilus via Synaptic I get an error Could not apply changes! Fix Broken packages first.

So I try that and I get E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.
E: Error, pkgProblemResolver::Resolve generated breaks, this may be caused by held packages.

I have tried numerous times clean/autoclean/update/upgrade etc.

Where do I begin?!

k3lt01 · 10-19-2014, 09:50 PM

If you haven't already reboot the machine, open synaptic and install ALL the missing recommends. Once you have done, or at least tried to do, this let us know what is happening.

I would also disable backports for the moment.

hongman · 10-19-2014, 09:54 PM

I rebooted the laptop and its broken even more now, looks like reinstall may be necessary.

All I get is a black terminal with X - so much like with startx except it is started.

:/

What is the best software to use to make a backup to network share so I can avoid this in future if I install a rogue application?

ondoho · 10-20-2014, 01:26 PM

you added jessie sources (=unstable or testing) to wheezy (=stable)? :facepalm:

i didn't read all you wrote, but by now i'm pretty sure you're facing a re-install.

please, please read up on debian's release mechanism to understand just how wrong that was.

hongman · 10-20-2014, 02:34 PM

I reinstalled