annoying problems after upgrading to 6.2-RELEASE

Scott Bennett bennett at cs.niu.edu
Sat Apr 28 06:55:34 UTC 2007


     On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 02:38:31 -0400 quoth Kris Kennaway <kris at obsecurity.org>:

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>On Thu, Apr 26, 2007 at 11:30:20PM -0500, Scott Bennett wrote:
>>      On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 23:13:40 -0400 Kris Kennaway <kris at obsecurity.or=
>g>
>> wrote:
>>=20
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>> >
>> >--BOKacYhQ+x31HxR3
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>> >On Thu, Apr 26, 2007 at 08:51:50PM -0500, Scott Bennett wrote:
>> >>      I've encountered three annoying problems since doing the upgrade =
>from
>> >> 6.1-RELEASE to 6.2-RELEASE using the upgrade option when booting from =
>the
>> >> installation CD.  This is on a Dell Inspiron XPS (3.4 GHz P4 w/HTT ena=
>bled
>> >> and 1 GB of memory).
>> >>=3D20
>> >> 	1) The ports and packages subsystems are as fragile as ever (no big
>> >> 	   surprise).  I was able to add packages for less than a day before
>> >> 	   it broke.  Sometimes I can still add or delete a package, but
>> >> 	   in at least one case, I can't because pkg_add says that an earlier
>> >> 	   version of the package is already installed, while an attempt to
>> >> 	   remove the earlier version using pkg_delete gets a message saying
>> >> 	   that no such package is installed.  Apparently, pkg_add and
>> >> 	   pkg_delete do not refer to the same indicators of whether a
>> >> 	   particular package is actually installed.  Attempting to build por=
>ts
>> >> 	   fails while trying to build dependency ports, which was what led
>> >> 	   to attempt to remove libtool and then add the newer version.  I'll
>> >> 	   try to get a PR together and submitted soon.
>> >
>> >It is recommended to use an upgrade tool like portupgrade instead of
>> >trying to use pkg_add/pkg_delete "by hand".  It is too easy to misuse
>>=20
>>      portinstall/portupgrade had failed to install/upgrade certain ports =
>or
>> packages to satisfy the dependencies in the ports I was trying to install=
> or
>> upgrade.  I really did want to install or upgrade several ports, and so I=
> had
>> begun attempting to install the required (or later) versions of the
>> prerequisites as packages in order to get around the build failures.
>
>It sounds like you may not have succeeded in first bringing your
>system back to a sane state.  Anyway, if you have problems please be
>more explicit here.

     Please note that I posted the first two items merely to inform the
readership of the existence of the problems.  I only hoped for assistance
on the third problem.
     Now, given that you are among the core ports team members, perhaps
you would enlighten me as to which indicators pkg_add uses and which
indicators pkg_delete uses to decide whether a particular package or port
is already installed.  With that information in mind, I might be able to
fix the problem by hand.  Perhaps you could also explain the rationale behind
having them both not use the same indicators, too, so that it might not
simply appear to me to be a glaring design error.
>
>> >them and leave your system in an inconsistent state, as yours
>> >apparently has become.
>>=20
>>      That sounds to me like an attempt to skate past my observation that
>> "Apparently, pkg_add and pkg_delete do not refer to the same indicators of
>> whether a particular package is actually installed."
>
>Well, they don't...please paste an appropriate transcript if you think
>there is a bug.
>
>>      BTW, it is recommended that plain, ASCII text be posted to mailing
>> lists, so as not to send lots of garbage to people who may or may not be
>> using MIME-oriented mail interfaces or using MIME-oriented mail interfaces
>> whose version of MIME is incapatible with that of the sender's mail inter=
>face.
>
>Uh thanks.  Read up on "PGP signatures" sometime.

     Well, it's true that I haven't used PGP for a few years now.  However,
every version of PGP that I did use was perfectly able to sign a cleartext
file by placing a header line at the start of the file and a trailer line at
the end of the file, followed by a PGP signature block.  IIRC, the options
to do that were -sat.  It was never necessary to use MIME to send a signed
message to a mailing list.
     I note that your signature block, quoted below, says it was produced
by GnuPG, *not* PGP.  I haven't used GnuPG and am therefore not familiar
with its abilities or deficiencies.  In any case, MIME is bad for mailing
lists.
>
>Kris
>
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>
     I post only infrequently to the freebsd-* lists and usually do so
in search of assistance with some problem for which I haven't yet found
a solution.  On occasion I have posted information to help someone else
who was looking for help, but because I subscribe to the digests, rather
than to all of the direct lists, by the time I see a call for help on a
matter I might be able to help with, there have already been several
responses.  But when I've posted, you've frequently responded with some
critical note offering no help whatsoever, and it has often seemed that
the ensuing exchange has deterred anyone else from offering help on the
matters in question.  I have noticed that you often respond in similar
fashion to others' requests for assistance or information.  I can't
speak for those others, but I would appreciate it greatly if you only
posted helpful information in response to *my* requests for help.
     If you can tell me a way to get cut/copy + paste operations to work
under 6.2-RELEASE-p3's version of X, I would be grateful.


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
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