after "some" graphics showup (splash screen) but before
login ... the screen gets black
the HDD shows some activity and the underground boot "seems"
to complete.
The system is responsive to altgr prtscn + RSEISUB keys

how can I diagnose and possibly solve ?

another fact : I mad the dist-upgrade in two steps

after changing the repos from buster to bullseye and adding
another new MX repo, I had made

first APT UPGRADE
then APT FULL-UPGRADE

Both showed no error / two "minor" errors (gstreamer package).

update-initramfs was self performed
(no grub update, and I did not think about manually perform
an update-grub, alas)

The selected kernel installed over 4.19 was 5.10

well, at boot, on selecting recovery mode (which has no
proper recovery option) shows only 4.19 and no trace of 5.10
..... maybe this is due of the lack of a grub-update step ?

I have WildFlower in a LIVE version too, but how to fix the
installed copy on the PC ?

tnx

--
1) Resistere, resistere, resistere.
2) Se tutti pagano le tasse, le tasse le pagano tutti
Soviet_Mario - (aka Gatto_Vizzato)

Le 25/11/2021 à 06:47, Soviet_Mario a écrit :
>
> after "some" graphics showup (splash screen) but before login ... the
> screen gets black
> the HDD shows some activity and the underground boot "seems" to complete.
> The system is responsive to altgr prtscn + RSEISUB keys

Looks like a graphic driver issue.
Can you reach a text console with Ctrl+Alt+F1/F2/F3... ?
What happens if you boot in recovery mode ?

> (no grub update, and I did not think about manually perform an
> update-grub, alas)

update-grub should have been run during the kernel upgrade.

> The selected kernel installed over 4.19 was 5.10
>
> well, at boot, on selecting recovery mode (which has no proper recovery
> option) shows only 4.19 and no trace of 5.10 .... maybe this is due of
> the lack of a grub-update step ?

Maybe. Is the kernel 5.10 really installed ?

Il 25/11/21 09:44, Pascal Hambourg ha scritto:
> Le 25/11/2021 à 06:47, Soviet_Mario a écrit :
>>
>> after "some" graphics showup (splash screen) but before
>> login ... the screen gets black
>> the HDD shows some activity and the underground boot
>> "seems" to complete.
>> The system is responsive to altgr prtscn + RSEISUB keys
>
> Looks like a graphic driver issue.
> Can you reach a text console with Ctrl+Alt+F1/F2/F3... ?

I tried the F1 or F2 combinations, but not F3 (which I did
not know)

> What happens if you boot in recovery mode ?

nothing particular, the same outcome in similar time, no
"failsafe" graphics mode is avail

just SysVInit vs SystemD modes are available, I tried both
and none solved the issue

>
>> (no grub update, and I did not think about manually
>> perform an update-grub, alas)
>
> update-grub should have been run during the kernel upgrade.

do you mean manually ? If so, I forgot this step

>
>> The selected kernel installed over 4.19 was 5.10
>>
>> well, at boot, on selecting recovery mode (which has no
>> proper recovery option) shows only 4.19 and no trace of
>> 5.10 .... maybe this is due of the lack of a grub-update
>> step ?
>
> Maybe. Is the kernel 5.10 really installed ?

dunno, how should I know in a BLIND mode ? in grub menu it
does not show up.

I am quite a lot suspicious of graphics since even in
Virtual Box MX copies of patito feo, some update broke the
screen too.

what could I do with "external" tools like a LIFE distro ?

for example, how to try to switch Intel <=> Nouveau driver ?
I dunno which one was installed befor the distro-upgrade,
but if I was able to work from the outside I'd try "the other".

--
1) Resistere, resistere, resistere.
2) Se tutti pagano le tasse, le tasse le pagano tutti
Soviet_Mario - (aka Gatto_Vizzato)

On Thu, 25 Nov 2021 09:44:35 +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
>
> Le 25/11/2021 à 06:47, Soviet_Mario a écrit :
>> after "some" graphics showup (splash screen) but before login
>> ... the screen gets black
>> the HDD shows some activity and the underground boot "seems" to complete.
>> The system is responsive to altgr prtscn + RSEISUB keys
>
> Looks like a graphic driver issue.
> Can you reach a text console with Ctrl+Alt+F1/F2/F3... ?

Was about to say CTRL+ALT+F3 (or what ever F-key) too. Assuming Linux
works the graphical login might have failed. From a TTY he can examine
the logs and might get an idea what wet wrong.

> What happens if you boot in recovery mode ?

Holding SHIFT while the GRUB countdown should stop it and offer an option
to boot into safe (recovery?) mode.
--
Andreas

On 11/25/21 12:47 AM, Soviet_Mario wrote:
>
> after "some" graphics showup (splash screen) but before login ... the
> screen gets black
> the HDD shows some activity and the underground boot "seems" to complete.
> The system is responsive to altgr prtscn + RSEISUB keys
>
>
> how can I diagnose and possibly solve ?
>
>
> another fact : I mad the dist-upgrade in two steps
>
> after changing the repos from buster to bullseye and adding another new
> MX repo, I had made
>
> first APT UPGRADE
> then APT FULL-UPGRADE
>
> Both showed no error / two "minor" errors (gstreamer package).
>
Did you APT UPDATE before APT UPGRADE ?

If not, the new repos may not have "taken", so to speak.

I've also run into some debates whether you should have
BOTH Buster and BullsEye in apt sources during an upgrade.
BullsEye, at least initially, wasn't entirely "complete"
and a version upgrade would encounter missing dependencies
and crash in the middle, trashing things entirely.

Also, MX (this laptop is MX) sometimes has screen brightness
issues. After an update mine was almost completely black.
There WAS a display, but so weak it could barely be seen.
The usual GUI settings did NOT fix it. However I could
use the brighter-darker keyboard buttons to turn it up
to where you could just see it. I'd have to retrace my
steps, some very obscure file has to be reset AT BOOT,
every time, to get the desired brightness.

MX also hates my touchpad ... been tweaking at that for
a month. It's "better", but still too many phantom
taps. Latest tweaks to synaptic.conf regarding palm
detection and z-axis sensitivity have been the most
help.

I've been tempted to go to Lubuntu or Mint with LXDE
on top, but MX does offer a lot of neat stuff you
don't find in other distros - including utility to
create a custom distro on your box and save it to
an ISO for installation elsewhere that actually works.

Le 25/11/2021 à 16:47, Soviet_Mario a écrit :
> Il 25/11/21 09:44, Pascal Hambourg ha scritto:
>
>> What happens if you boot in recovery mode ?
>
> nothing particular, the same outcome in similar time, no "failsafe"
> graphics mode is avail
>
> just SysVInit vs SystemD modes are available, I tried both and none
> solved the issue

sysvinit vs systemd is just the init choice. I meant the "(recovery
mode)" entry in GRUB's "Advanced options for LMDE" submenu, which has
the "single" parameter in the kernel command line (press "e" to check).

>> update-grub should have been run during the kernel upgrade.
>
> do you mean manually ?

No, I meant automatically.

>> Is the kernel 5.10 really installed ?
>
> dunno, how should I know in a BLIND mode ? in grub menu it does not show
> up.

You use the GRUB shell (press "c") to look in the /boot directory. That
should do it :

ls $prefix/..

> for example, how to try to switch Intel <=> Nouveau driver ?

Why would you want to do this ? Each driver is for a different GPU
family. Do you have dual Intel+Nvidia GPUs ?

On Thu, 25 Nov 2021 16:47:07 +0100, Soviet_Mario wrote:
>
> Il 25/11/21 09:44, Pascal Hambourg ha scritto:
>> Le 25/11/2021 à 06:47, Soviet_Mario a écrit :
>>>
>>> after "some" graphics showup (splash screen) but before login
>>> ... the screen gets black
>>> the HDD shows some activity and the underground boot "seems" to
>>> complete.
>>> The system is responsive to altgr prtscn + RSEISUB keys
>> Looks like a graphic driver issue.
>> Can you reach a text console with Ctrl+Alt+F1/F2/F3... ?
>
> I tried the F1 or F2 combinations, but not F3 (which I did not know)

You need to push CTRL and ALT, hold it. While holding the two keys, push
F3. The problem which F-key to push is not to know, on which the GUI is
running on your computer. So press CTRL and ALT and hold it while pushing
for example F6, or any other F-key, until you are dropped to a TTY
(text-mode only, no mouse support).

If that happens, you might be already logged in. If not, supply the name
of the user you (hopefully) set up on installation, hit ENTER. Then enter
the password (it will not be echoed, so type it in blindly).

There you might to want to become root to have full access to the
system. Try entering

sudo su

>>> well, at boot, on selecting recovery mode (which has no proper
>>> recovery option) shows only 4.19 and no trace of 5.10 .... maybe
>>> this is due of the lack of a grub-update step ?
>> Maybe. Is the kernel 5.10 really installed ?
>
> dunno, how should I know in a BLIND mode ? in grub menu it does not
> show up.

When booting you might see the GRUB, counting down. Hit SHIFT (or
possibly any other key) to stop automated booting. You should see a menu
which should allow you to select "safe boot" or similar. Move there and
hit ENTER (or F10 if ENTER doesn't work).
--
Andreas

Il 25/11/21 19:49, Pascal Hambourg ha scritto:
> Le 25/11/2021 à 16:47, Soviet_Mario a écrit :
>> Il 25/11/21 09:44, Pascal Hambourg ha scritto:
>>
>>> What happens if you boot in recovery mode ?
>>
>> nothing particular, the same outcome in similar time, no
>> "failsafe" graphics mode is avail
>>
>> just SysVInit vs SystemD modes are available, I tried both
>> and none solved the issue
>
> sysvinit vs systemd is just the init choice. I meant the
> "(recovery mode)" entry in GRUB's "Advanced options for
> LMDE" submenu, which has the "single" parameter in the
> kernel command line (press "e" to check).

I entered in the grub-config editing by mistake, immediately
realizing I was unable to understand anything (just noticed
the reference to 4.19 kernel version instead of 5.10). That
kind of intervention is by far too beyond my abilities.

>
>>> update-grub should have been run during the kernel upgrade.
>>
>> do you mean manually ?
>
> No, I meant automatically.

I should have remembered to do it manually, and beforehand
to refresh initramfs

>
>>> Is the kernel 5.10 really installed ?
>>
>> dunno, how should I know in a BLIND mode ? in grub menu it
>> does not show up.
>
> You use the GRUB shell (press "c") to look in the /boot
> directory. That should do it :
>
> ls $prefix/..
>
>> for example, how to try to switch Intel <=> Nouveau driver ?
>
> Why would you want to do this ? Each driver is for a
> different GPU family. Do you have dual Intel+Nvidia GPUs ?

just intel (not nvidia). I was comparing the default generic
driver to hardware specific one, assuming that one should be
better than the other.

I think (no proofs !) there is some problem in changing
video mode. During startup some graphic theme and a progress
bar DOES show up, but later it vanishes.

--
1) Resistere, resistere, resistere.
2) Se tutti pagano le tasse, le tasse le pagano tutti
Soviet_Mario - (aka Gatto_Vizzato)

Il 25/11/21 19:00, 166p1 ha scritto:
> On 11/25/21 12:47 AM, Soviet_Mario wrote:
>>
>> after "some" graphics showup (splash screen) but before
>> login ... the screen gets black
>> the HDD shows some activity and the underground boot
>> "seems" to complete.
>> The system is responsive to altgr prtscn + RSEISUB keys
>>
>>
>> how can I diagnose and possibly solve ?
>>
>>
>> another fact : I mad the dist-upgrade in two steps
>>
>> after changing the repos from buster to bullseye and
>> adding another new MX repo, I had made
>>
>> first APT UPGRADE
>> then APT FULL-UPGRADE
>>
>> Both showed no error / two "minor" errors (gstreamer
>> package).
>>
>   Did you APT UPDATE before APT UPGRADE ?

yes, sure, after renaming the REPOS, I performed the
database update.

>
>   If not, the new repos may not have "taken", so to speak.

Sure

>
>   I've also run into some debates whether you should have
>   BOTH Buster and BullsEye in apt sources during an upgrade.
>   BullsEye, at least initially, wasn't entirely "complete"
>   and a version upgrade would encounter missing dependencies
>   and crash in the middle, trashing things entirely.

dunno ... but MX is not plain Debian, it also has some
specific repo on its own, so dunno

>
>   Also, MX (this laptop is MX) sometimes has screen brightness
>   issues. After an update mine was almost completely black.

same as here (and also some as in some virtual machines
after some upgrades : luckily there I reversed the upgrade
restoring a former snapshot)

I really love MX aesthetically, but I must say I have always
had both screen problems and unpredictable system stuck.
Tonight, on a third other 11y-old machine where too I had
installed a fresh WILDFLOWER on a dedicaded disk, during sw
installation, a freezing crash. totally unresponsive.
Debian never crashes on that dual boot machine.

>   There WAS a display, but so weak it could barely be seen.
>   The usual GUI settings did NOT fix it. However I could
>   use the brighter-darker keyboard buttons to turn it up
>   to where you could just see it. I'd have to retrace my
>   steps, some very obscure file has to be reset AT BOOT,
>   every time, to get the desired brightness.
>
>   MX also hates my touchpad ... been tweaking at that for

and also hates the network cards of a really old NZ200 small
toshiba :\

>   a month. It's "better", but still too many phantom
>   taps. Latest tweaks to synaptic.conf regarding palm
>   detection and z-axis sensitivity have been the most
>   help.
>
>   I've been tempted to go to Lubuntu or Mint with LXDE

I love Mint LMDE (the pure debian version).

>   on top, but MX does offer a lot of neat stuff you

I agree, it ships with a lot of very tasty and friendly
utilities ... but out of 3 true machines and a virtual one,
it runs reliably on just ONE.
And it is a distro where I do not even do much
"experiments", just very normal usage.

On Debian I made all possible disasters, and somewhat it
absorbs the strikes.
Devuan too seems rocky, but I am experiencing problems
upgrading from beowulf to dedalus.
Maybe I'll open another 3D :\

>   don't find in other distros - including  utility to
>   create a custom distro on your box and save it to
>   an ISO for installation elsewhere that actually works.
>

--
1) Resistere, resistere, resistere.
2) Se tutti pagano le tasse, le tasse le pagano tutti
Soviet_Mario - (aka Gatto_Vizzato)

Le 25/11/2021 à 23:15, Andreas Kohlbach a écrit :
>
> There you might to want to become root to have full access to the
> system. Try entering
>
> sudo su

Please, no. This command is silly. To launch a root shell you can use
"su -l" if you have the root password or "sudo -s" or "sudo -i" if your
account has sudo powers.

Le 26/11/2021 à 05:52, Soviet_Mario a écrit :
>>
>>> for example, how to try to switch Intel <=> Nouveau driver ?
>>
>> Why would you want to do this ? Each driver is for a different GPU
>> family. Do you have dual Intel+Nvidia GPUs ?
>
> just intel (not nvidia).

So there is no point in using the nouveau driver.

> I think (no proofs !) there is some problem in changing video mode.
> During startup some graphic theme and a progress bar DOES show up, but
> later it vanishes.

This must be the splash screen displayed by plymouth, so I assume the
graphic kernel driver (i915) works fine and the problem happens when
Xorg or Wayland starts.

By editing the GRUB menu entry, you can
- remove the splash scree to show more messages
- disable the graphic environment

To do this, at the GRUB menu
- press "e" to edit the main MX entry,
- move the cursor to the end of the line which starts with "linux",
- delete "splash"
- append "2"
- press F10 to boot.

This should lead to a text login screen in tty1.

On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 09:25:20 +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
>
> This should lead to a text login screen in tty1.

Suppose Soviet Mario is new to Linux, he will lack (no offense) deeper
knowledge of the Linux command line. Thus this proposal, otherwise
helpful, will only add confusion.
--
Andreas

On 26.11.2021 at 04:07, Andreas Kohlbach scribbled:

> On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 09:25:20 +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
> >
> > This should lead to a text login screen in tty1.
>
> Suppose Soviet Mario is new to Linux, he will lack (no offense) deeper
> knowledge of the Linux command line. Thus this proposal, otherwise
> helpful, will only add confusion.

He's not new to GNU/Linux, but he does have a habit of wanting to
leap before he can walk. ;)

--
With respect,
= Aragorn =

Il 26/11/21 10:13, Aragorn ha scritto:
> On 26.11.2021 at 04:07, Andreas Kohlbach scribbled:
>
>> On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 09:25:20 +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
>>>
>>> This should lead to a text login screen in tty1.
>>
>> Suppose Soviet Mario is new to Linux, he will lack (no offense) deeper
>> knowledge of the Linux command line. Thus this proposal, otherwise
>> helpful, will only add confusion.
>
> He's not new to GNU/Linux, but he does have a habit of wanting to
> leap before he can walk. ;)
>

+1 for U

--
1) Resistere, resistere, resistere.
2) Se tutti pagano le tasse, le tasse le pagano tutti
Soviet_Mario - (aka Gatto_Vizzato)

Il 26/11/21 10:07, Andreas Kohlbach ha scritto:
> On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 09:25:20 +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
>>
>> This should lead to a text login screen in tty1.
>
> Suppose Soviet Mario is new to Linux, he will lack (no offense)

I cannot say I'm really "new" but I have zero or so
knowledge of the command line.

Tonight I bring at my fathers' a LIVE version and I put
aside home and other things before other

> deeper
> knowledge of the Linux command line.

so sadly true

> Thus this proposal, otherwise
> helpful, will only add confusion.
>

--
1) Resistere, resistere, resistere.
2) Se tutti pagano le tasse, le tasse le pagano tutti
Soviet_Mario - (aka Gatto_Vizzato)

On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 17:12:43 +0100, Soviet_Mario wrote:
>
> Il 26/11/21 10:07, Andreas Kohlbach ha scritto:
>> On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 09:25:20 +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
>>>
>>> This should lead to a text login screen in tty1.
>> Suppose Soviet Mario is new to Linux, he will lack (no offense)
>
> I cannot say I'm really "new" but I have zero or so knowledge of the
> command line.

In 1996 I was "forced" to deal with the command-line on my first
Linux. It was a Windows 95 PC with a "massive" 1.3 GB (that's 1.300 MB,
not GB or let alone TB) hard disk, where Windows occupied about 800
MB. Had to split the hard disk into three (Windows, Linux, Swap), and
barely had 450 MB for Linux. No space for a GUI. Today I'm glad I had to
deal with the command-line back then, giving me at least some basic
knowledge.

If you have time ad want to learn, there are several books around. I
bought "Linux in a nutshell" by O'Reilly
<https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/linux-in-a/9780596806088/> later
which helped a lot.

> Tonight I bring at my fathers' a LIVE version and I put aside home and
> other things before other

Good luck!
--
Andreas

On 11/26/21 08:12, Soviet_Mario wrote:
> Il 26/11/21 10:07, Andreas Kohlbach ha scritto:
>> On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 09:25:20 +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
>>>
>>> This should lead to a text login screen in tty1.
>>
>> Suppose Soviet Mario is new to Linux, he will lack (no offense)
>
> I cannot say I'm really "new" but I have zero or so knowledge of the
> command line.

No knowledge of the Command Line? Easily repaired, look around the
Internet,

>
> Tonight I bring at my fathers' a LIVE version and I put aside home and
> other things before other
>
>> deeper
>> knowledge of the Linux command line.
>
> so sadly true
>
>> Thus this proposal, otherwise
>> helpful, will only add confusion.
>>

bliss - brought to you by the power and ease of PCLinuxOS
and a minor case of hypergraphia

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

Il 26/11/21 09:25, Pascal Hambourg ha scritto:
> Le 26/11/2021 à 05:52, Soviet_Mario a écrit :
>>>
>>>> for example, how to try to switch Intel <=> Nouveau
>>>> driver ?
>>>
>>> Why would you want to do this ? Each driver is for a
>>> different GPU family. Do you have dual Intel+Nvidia GPUs ?
>>
>> just intel (not nvidia).
>
> So there is no point in using the nouveau driver.
>
>> I think (no proofs !) there is some problem in changing
>> video mode. During startup some graphic theme and a
>> progress bar DOES show up, but later it vanishes.
>
> This must be the splash screen displayed by plymouth, so I
> assume the graphic kernel driver (i915) works fine and the
> problem happens when Xorg or Wayland starts.
>
> By editing the GRUB menu entry, you can
> - remove the splash scree to show more messages
> - disable the graphic environment
>
> To do this, at the GRUB menu
> - press "e" to edit the main MX entry,
> - move the cursor to the end of the line which starts with
> "linux",
> - delete "splash"
> - append "2"
> - press F10 to boot.
>
> This should lead to a text login screen in tty1.

I owe you (and everybody) a long reply, hoping not to be too
confusing.
First of all, your suggestion was that self-confidency spur
I was missing, the first sand grain that provoked the
avalanche :D

Let me go back in time, when I first tried the DIST-UPGRADE
Mx19 => MX21

I manually edited the repos, and SOME of them (security
related) caused some error.

I made as I had read on internet, the classic
APT UPDATE then APT UPGRADE then APT FULL-UPGRADE

I got just a couple of errors, and I was very optimistic,
assuming every other thing had gone the right way, and not
even thinking about that FIRST couple of errors could have
prevented the upgrade to progress, but simply to abort (it
took so much time regardeless of errors that I really
thought it had updated everything at all)

the manual editing and removing of SPLASH screen, disclosed
the login prompt in fallback text mode.

Luckily I had recently faced sort of the same problems (but
non with blackscreen) upgrading another machine from BUSTER
to BULLSEYE.

There, for no particular reason at all, and not having read
about on the web, I tried the "ITERATION" cycle way.

The cycle was made of some

APT UPDATE --FIX-MISSING
APT FULL-UPGRADE
APT FIX-BROKEN-INSTALL
DPKG --configure -a

And by serendipity I discovered that at the very second
cycle, the number of pending, broken, or simply upgradable
package, HAD RAISED since the first partial attempt.
The number was still in the order of some hundredth in the
third cycle, and declined, until at maybe the 4th or 5th
cycle, it finally reached 0 upgradable 0 to remove 0 new to
install 0 broken 0 half-configured and so.

my temptative explanation is : the theory of the nearest
mountain, hiding the further and possibly higher remaining.
Maybe the partial n_th cycle enable some further packages to
be upgraded fulfilling the dependencies missing before.

during every cycle, I got repeated
*WARNING* I cannot open GTK Gnome-front end (display
manager) or similar.

a lot of GTK libraries had been possibly in half upgraded
status.

In the end I made an
INITRAMFS-UPDATE -U
and
GRUB-UPDATE

APT autoclean autoremove

REBOOT

The display manager got back to work again, even if until
reboot the warning had not disappeared.

After the full upgrade, I had some other a bit disagreable
surprises. Some expected : a few launchers in the XFCE
panels showed a cross icon, and their executable was no
longer existing (i.g. catfish must have been either
discontinued or moved in another position or changed name, I
have had no time to do this hunt yet) and some very strange
thing

the USB-MODEM (alcatel) ceased to work, since the NETWORK
MANAGER did not work no matter what.
also INXI -N said ETH0 interface : DOWN

I had the very bizarre idea to try to reboot bypassing
SysVInit (the default on MX) and use SystemD ... well, this
way the Network manager was working, and the connection
restored.

I dunno why SysVInit NOW is preventing Network Manager to
work properly (it had not been the case beforehands) while
SystemD recognizes it ...

but the most of the problem is solved.

The gist is : sometimes the update/upgrade must be repeated
many times, since in one sweep only many packages remain not
upgraded.

tnx for all suggestions, hope my experiment might be useful
to others as well

--
1) Resistere, resistere, resistere.
2) Se tutti pagano le tasse, le tasse le pagano tutti
Soviet_Mario - (aka Gatto_Vizzato)

On 11/26/21 12:03 AM, Soviet_Mario wrote:
> Il 25/11/21 19:00, 166p1 ha scritto:
>> On 11/25/21 12:47 AM, Soviet_Mario wrote:
>>>
>>> after "some" graphics showup (splash screen) but before login ... the
>>> screen gets black
>>> the HDD shows some activity and the underground boot "seems" to
>>> complete.
>>> The system is responsive to altgr prtscn + RSEISUB keys
>>>
>>>
>>> how can I diagnose and possibly solve ?
>>>
>>>
>>> another fact : I mad the dist-upgrade in two steps
>>>
>>> after changing the repos from buster to bullseye and adding another
>>> new MX repo, I had made
>>>
>>> first APT UPGRADE
>>> then APT FULL-UPGRADE
>>>
>>> Both showed no error / two "minor" errors (gstreamer package).
>>>
>>    Did you APT UPDATE before APT UPGRADE ?
>
> yes, sure, after renaming the REPOS, I performed the database update.
>
>>
>>    If not, the new repos may not have "taken", so to speak.
>
> Sure
>
>>
>>    I've also run into some debates whether you should have
>>    BOTH Buster and BullsEye in apt sources during an upgrade.
>>    BullsEye, at least initially, wasn't entirely "complete"
>>    and a version upgrade would encounter missing dependencies
>>    and crash in the middle, trashing things entirely.
>
> dunno ... but MX is not plain Debian, it also has some specific repo on
> its own, so dunno
>
>>
>>    Also, MX (this laptop is MX) sometimes has screen brightness
>>    issues. After an update mine was almost completely black.
>
> same as here (and also some as in some virtual machines after some
> upgrades : luckily there I reversed the upgrade restoring a former
> snapshot)
>
> I really love MX aesthetically, but I must say I have always had both
> screen problems and unpredictable system stuck.
> Tonight, on a third other 11y-old machine where too I had installed a
> fresh WILDFLOWER on a dedicaded disk, during sw installation, a freezing
> crash. totally unresponsive.
> Debian never crashes on that dual boot machine.
>
>
>>    There WAS a display, but so weak it could barely be seen.
>>    The usual GUI settings did NOT fix it. However I could
>>    use the brighter-darker keyboard buttons to turn it up
>>    to where you could just see it. I'd have to retrace my
>>    steps, some very obscure file has to be reset AT BOOT,
>>    every time, to get the desired brightness.
>>
>>    MX also hates my touchpad ... been tweaking at that for
>
> and also hates the network cards of a really old NZ200 small toshiba :\

Older hardware is always a problem. Most distros start
cutting out the 'old' stuff to save space and complexity.
Your best bet is one of those small distros meant to be
run on old machines. You CAN turn a 'small' distro into
a full-sized one, of course.

>>    a month. It's "better", but still too many phantom
>>    taps. Latest tweaks to synaptic.conf regarding palm
>>    detection and z-axis sensitivity have been the most
>>    help.
>>
>>    I've been tempted to go to Lubuntu or Mint with LXDE
>
> I love Mint LMDE (the pure debian version).
>
>>    on top, but MX does offer a lot of neat stuff you
>
> I agree, it ships with a lot of very tasty and friendly utilities ...
> but out of 3 true machines and a virtual one, it runs reliably on just ONE.
> And it is a distro where I do not even do much "experiments", just very
> normal usage.
>
> On Debian I made all possible disasters, and somewhat it absorbs the
> strikes.

It's pretty tough. Probably why so many others use it
as their base.

> Devuan too seems rocky, but I am experiencing problems upgrading from
> beowulf to dedalus.
> Maybe I'll open another 3D :\

Devuan is interesting, but I don't think it has
a big enough development team to really get it
shipshape.

>
>>    don't find in other distros - including  utility to
>>    create a custom distro on your box and save it to
>>    an ISO for installation elsewhere that actually works.

Ah ... brightness fix ... in /etc/rc.local put :
echo 150 > /sys/class/backlight/amdgpu_bl0/brightness

This is for a Dell subnotebook but might be relevant
elsewhere.

I am not entirely happy with XFCE and added LXDE.

Mint is pretty good - my main box is Mint now. I did
undo some annoying "Ubuntisms" ... /etc/network/interfaces
works again (zero reason to change that old convention).
Gotta pull off some other garbage too. I don't use, or
even like, 'cloud' crap.

There may be some utility in installing KVM and putting
a basic copy of your current system in there as a VM.
THEN practice the update process on THAT and see if it
works or where/why it goes wrong. If you nuke it, just
replace it with a copy and try again.

Anyway, MX is my "go to" system most of the time. I just
plain like it. Apparently a lot of people do, it's still
number one on DistroWatch.

The closer 'buntu copies DO have one advantage - a much
smoother (though not infallible) distribution upgrade.
I put just WAY too many apps on a box to have to start
from scratch every time Deb goes up a version.

And the RPMs ... um, no, not really. Fedora is quite
poor. Centos has been murdered by IBM. I installed
an Oracle Linux VM the other day, but I don't know if
it's gotten the same downgrades as Centos yet. The
only good RPM distro is OpenSUSE - and it's very good,
very helpful, an all-around nice distro. Always has been.
A bit too bulky for a PI alas - but I *did* make it run
on one.

Arch, Gentoo ... just too much work. The BSD's have
their place however, esp for outward-facing servers.
Trying out GhostBSD and Dragonfly currently, but
Free/OpenBSD are still the rock solid standards.

Il 27/11/21 05:41, 166p1 ha scritto:
> On 11/26/21 12:03 AM, Soviet_Mario wrote:
>> Il 25/11/21 19:00, 166p1 ha scritto:
>>> On 11/25/21 12:47 AM, Soviet_Mario wrote:
>>>>

CUT ALL
>
>   I am not entirely happy with XFCE and added LXDE.

me too I usually add LxDE (or if avail LxQT), to save some
ram on such poor machines

>
>   Mint is pretty good - my main box is Mint now. I did
>   undo some annoying "Ubuntisms" ... /etc/network/interfaces

since you need to de-ubuntize mint, why not give a try to
LMDE ? It is Linux Mint purely debianized.

The exact difference I dunno which could be, maybe slower
updating cycle (Debian is less frantic than Ubuntu), and
some lagging, but It no longer share ubuntu's repos, and
less emphasis on SNAP apps.

I tried the 3 release, in a VM, so I don't think I'll
upgrade it.

>   works again (zero reason to change that old convention).
>   Gotta pull off some other garbage too. I don't use, or
>   even like, 'cloud' crap.
>
>   There may be some utility in installing KVM and putting
>   a basic copy of your current system in there as a VM.
>   THEN practice the update process on THAT and see if it
>   works or where/why it goes wrong. If you nuke it, just
>   replace it with a copy and try again.
>
>   Anyway, MX is my "go to" system most of the time. I just
>   plain like it. Apparently a lot of people do, it's still
>   number one on DistroWatch.

it's sleek !
now it seems to also work with WiFi networking, deep
misteries ... I have done no further maintenance. It simply
awakened on the right foot :)

>
>   The closer 'buntu copies DO have one advantage - a much
>   smoother (though not infallible) distribution upgrade.
>   I put just WAY too many apps on a box to have to start
>   from scratch every time Deb goes up a version.
>
>   And the RPMs ... um, no, not really.

I had problems with Dragora updater, but likely due to my
zero-skill, and at last I resigned.
As long as it had worked, my impressions on Fedora 28-29 had
been good. Just a bit unfamiliar despite using XFCE.

> Fedora is quite
>   poor. Centos has been murdered by IBM. I installed
>   an Oracle Linux VM the other day, but I don't know if
>   it's gotten the same downgrades as Centos yet. The
>   only good RPM distro is OpenSUSE - and it's very good,
>   very helpful, an all-around nice distro. Always has been.
>   A bit too bulky for a PI alas - but I *did* make it run
>   on one.
>
>   Arch, Gentoo ... just too much work. The BSD's have
>   their place however, esp for outward-facing servers.
>   Trying out GhostBSD and Dragonfly currently, but
>   Free/OpenBSD are still the rock solid standards.

--
1) Resistere, resistere, resistere.
2) Se tutti pagano le tasse, le tasse le pagano tutti
Soviet_Mario - (aka Gatto_Vizzato)

On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 11:54:58 -0800, Bobbie Sellers wrote:
>
> On 11/26/21 08:12, Soviet_Mario wrote:
>> Il 26/11/21 10:07, Andreas Kohlbach ha scritto:
>>> On Fri, 26 Nov 2021 09:25:20 +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
>>>>
>>>> This should lead to a text login screen in tty1.
>>>
>>> Suppose Soviet Mario is new to Linux, he will lack (no offense)
>> I cannot say I'm really "new" but I have zero or so knowledge of the
>> command line.
>
> No knowledge of the Command Line? Easily repaired, look
> around the Internet,

Easier said than done. For someone using a GUI, be it Windows, Mac or
Linux, it's probably hard to dismiss the mouse. It would be helpful
though if a person used MS-DOS, CP/M or other command-line interfaces in
the past.
--
Andreas

On Sat, 27 Nov 2021 03:57:56 +0100, Soviet_Mario wrote:
>
> After the full upgrade, I had some other a bit disagreable
> surprises. Some expected : a few launchers in the XFCE
> panels showed a cross icon, and their executable was no longer
> existing (i.g. catfish must have been either discontinued or moved in
> another position or changed name, I have had no time to do this hunt
> yet) and some very strange thing
>
> the USB-MODEM (alcatel) ceased to work, since the NETWORK MANAGER did
> not work no matter what.
> also INXI -N said ETH0 interface : DOWN

I don't know about USB-modem connections. But unless it's somehow using
eth0, and if there's no cable in the ethernet jack, "eth0 down" is expected.

> I had the very bizarre idea to try to reboot bypassing SysVInit (the
> default on MX) and use SystemD ... well, this way the Network manager
> was working, and the connection restored.

Doubt that will help. It's booting already with SystemD.

> I dunno why SysVInit NOW is preventing Network Manager to work
> properly (it had not been the case beforehands) while SystemD
> recognizes it ...
>
> but the most of the problem is solved.
>
> The gist is : sometimes the update/upgrade must be repeated many
> times, since in one sweep only many packages remain not upgraded.

Some package depend on other packages and those also must have certain
version numbers. If a dependency of these isn't met there other packets
depending on it won't get an update. They'll eventually get it later.
--
Andreas

Le 27-11-2021, Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> a écrit :
>
> Easier said than done. For someone using a GUI, be it Windows, Mac or
> Linux, it's probably hard to dismiss the mouse.

In fact, for some functionalities, like games or drawing, I agree it's
difficult to dismiss the mouse. And a lot of applications are very
difficult to use without a mouse. But, if you choose your WM and your
applications, there are a lot of possibilities.

For the VM, you have a lot of tilling Window Managers among which to
choose (just a few of them) :
<https://swaywm.org/>
<https://i3wm.org/>
<https://xmonad.org/>
<https://awesomewm.org/>
<https://dwm.suckless.org/>

For the web browser, you have plugins in Firefox, but you have dedicated
browsers, at least :
<https://qutebrowser.org/>
<https://nyxt.atlas.engineer/>

In fact, when your purpose is to write or read things, the mouse is very
easy to avoid, there is always something to help you. For other usages,
it can be tricky.

--
Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
https://scarpet42.gitlab.io

Le 27/11/2021 à 19:29, Stéphane CARPENTIER a écrit :
> Le 27-11-2021, Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> a écrit :
>>
>> Easier said than done. For someone using a GUI, be it Windows, Mac or
>> Linux, it's probably hard to dismiss the mouse.
>
> In fact, for some functionalities, like games or drawing, I agree it's
> difficult to dismiss the mouse. And a lot of applications are very
> difficult to use without a mouse. But, if you choose your WM and your
> applications, there are a lot of possibilities.

The point is not to dismiss the mouse but to be able to use the command
line for tasks when no GUI is available. I use the mouse in command line
for copy and paste.

On Sat, 27 Nov 2021 19:50:15 +0100, Pascal Hambourg wrote:
>
> Le 27/11/2021 à 19:29, Stéphane CARPENTIER a écrit :
>> Le 27-11-2021, Andreas Kohlbach <ank@spamfence.net> a écrit :
>>>
>>> Easier said than done. For someone using a GUI, be it Windows, Mac or
>>> Linux, it's probably hard to dismiss the mouse.
>> In fact, for some functionalities, like games or drawing, I agree
>> it's
>> difficult to dismiss the mouse. And a lot of applications are very
>> difficult to use without a mouse. But, if you choose your WM and your
>> applications, there are a lot of possibilities.
>
> The point is not to dismiss the mouse but to be able to use the
> command line for tasks when no GUI is available. I use the mouse in
> command line for copy and paste.

Point taken. "Dismiss" was not a good idea. Should have used "to learn
the command-line" instead.
--
Andreas