I'm getting this messages (as per subject) whenever I try any commands, this follows trying to reinstall the appropriate glibc version for my slack 9.1 box.

Can this be saved or am I facing a reinstall of the system.

I currently cant connect with any new ssh sessions, I can however still access the web pages that the system is serving.

Slackware 9.1 had been superseded when I started using Linux seven years ago. It might be time to consider upgrading.

The machine has ran fine all that time, doing what it was intended to, mail and web basically.

I don't really want to go through setting it all up again don't mind playing with my other systems but this one kind of needs to just work.

I have a backup of /boot /etc and /var which I am coping to another pc as we speak so if I do need to reinstall, I guess I'll have a decent start.

Would be nice if this could be saved though, so any sugestions would be most gratefull.

At this time, I can no longer ssh into the machine, web services are still running though, hence I am able to extract my backup file using webmin.

Do you still have your slackware 9.1 install disk? You should be able to boot that, and install only glibc to recover the system.

I should have or at least can d/l them again, if my memory serves me right though, I had to do the old boot/root disks to install this back then.

So, thoughts being, if I get to the basic "ready to install" prompt, run pkgtool and reinstall gclib?

It was certainly the version of gclib that is on the 9.1 CD's that I put back on last night.

This is turning out to be a nightmare, this old faithful hasnt had a keyboard or monitor connected to it since it was set up all those years ago.

Update...

I have so far managed to boot with the install disk, mount the root partition and also the /var partition (not sure if this was needed by the package manager) and removed glibc and then reinstalled from the CD, the correct version for slack 9.1, still no juy, wont boot, throws up "FATAL: kernel too old".

In desperation, I tried installing the whole "l" packages section, still the same results.

Any help/ideas?

Just found this: http://rlworkman.net/howtos/glibc-recovery Will try again in the daylight hours

Hmm..yeah, probably good idea to make sure all the glibc packages are re-installed. Are you sure you actually did update the glibc package though? What version does /var/log/packages/ (or whatever your mountpoint/var/log/packages if using a bootdisk) indicate is installed and does that match the version on the Slackware 9.1 install?

I only ask the question because I would guess the newer version of glibc is the one complaining about the version of the kernel, but only a guess here.

Removed

/fail

I've reinstalled all thr a and l packages now and still no joy.

I tried booting with one of the other kernels i had from previous and didnt get my FATAL: kernel too old message, but system eventually hung after giving "updating dependencies for 2.4.2" and then loads of insmod errors/issues.

Think, I'll give up on this as I need to get it back up and running quickly, so think its looking like a fresh install

Thanks for the help though

@tmmukunn yup, the log shows packages that match the slackware disk

Haven't you ever run slackpkg update? Have a look at the ChangeLog:
ftp://ftp.slackware.org.uk/slackware.../ChangeLog.txt

nah, I basically set this up way back, tweaked the kernel and its basically ran since, only ever rebooted when changing my ups battery really.

This all really started when trying to compile something, (complied may things in its time without issues), assumed I needed to update glibc and here I am.

To recap;

I've booted with the install CD and tried to remove/update all of the "a" and "l" package groups (with exception to the kernel in the "a" group).

So I now have two scenarios while trying to boot, when booting with my original, as installed kernel, I get the FATAL: kernel too old issue. when trying to boot with the tweaked kernel, which has been run for years, I'm thrown lots of "insmod warnings/errors" and "updating module dependencies" warings. It eventually hangs.

If this can be sorted and anyone has some easy to understand steps, I'd love to hear them, otherwise, I'll bite the bullit and do a fresh install and pull my configs and www data from backup.

Thanks

In that "a" group there is also a package for kernel modules. If that was installed, that's probably the cause of all the errors and warnings. Your "tweaked" kernel modules may be gone or corrupted. If you built the kernel on that machine, change into the build directory and issue make modules_install again.

How did you remove the wrong glibc? removepkg won't remove it. You have to remove it by hand. For example, if you installed glibc-2.3.4, try See, the wrong library is still there. You have to rm the files yourself.

The last thing I tried was: http://rlworkman.net/howtos/glibc-recovery

I'll be back at it tonight for another go and update accordingly.

I did however think that the purpose of the pkgtool was to do the deleting/installing for you, so you didnt have to go manually removing files.

glibc is special. pkgtools work ok if you upgrade to a later version, it just leaves the old version there. But now you want to downgrade and you get to problems because it leaves the newer version there.

(How so? Because the incoming library files are in an "incoming" subdirectory from which the are moved to place. And they are not there any longer when you think you are removing them.)