[CentOS] CR repo update disaster for my desktop.

Wed Dec 5 08:30:32 UTC 2018
Rob Kampen <rkampen at kampensonline.com>

On 5/12/18 4:17 AM, Simon Matter wrote:
>> On 4/12/18 9:06 AM, Rob Kampen wrote:
>>> Sorry for top post, my android BlueMail will not let me insert at the
>>> bottom.
>>>
>>> I have found that tracker-extract seems to trigger a segfault. I note
>>> this is not updated in CR, but comes from base. Removal of tracker seems
>>> too harsh as it has dependant modules like brasero, evince, grilo,
>>> nautilus and totem.
>>> Maybe there is an obscure relationship in tracker that need attention.
>>> Stumpped.
>>>
>>> ⁣Sent from BlueMail ​
>>>
>>> On 03 Dec 2018, 11:28 PM, at 11:28 PM, Fabian Arrotin
>>> <arrfab at centos.org> wrote:
>>>> On 03/12/2018 11:14, John Hodrien wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 3 Dec 2018, Simon Matter wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>>> Le 03/12/2018 à 06:25, Rob Kampen a écrit :
>>>>>>>> I enabled the CR repo and did the yum update. Some 800+ rpms were
>>>>>>>> offered and all seemed to resolve depenancies OK, so yes it was
>>>>>>>> started. The updates completed and all looked good, until the
>>>> reboot.
>>>>>>> I got a similar disaster here. I guess the lesson to be learned is
>>>> that
>>>>>>> CR is nice to have on servers, but don't use it on desktops.
>>>>>> My question is what will change with the final release of 7.6? I
>>>> thought
>>>>>> the CR repo usually holds all updates with the exception of
>>>>>> centos-release, or are there more updates to come? I had the
>>>> impression
>>>>>> that in the past, the final release brought only cosmetic changes
>>>> with
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> centos-release being updated.
>>>>> I've seen zero problems on Desktops I've installed CR on.
>>>>>
>>>>> If CR has issues, as you say you'd expect 7.6 to have problems.  If
>>>>> things are
>>>>> failing with CR updates, you really want to investigate what's going
>>>> on.
>>>>> jh
>>>> +1 as 7.6.1810 is exactly 7.5.1804+updates+CR so only missing packages
>>>> are centos-release/anaconda and install tree/media ..
>>>>
>>>> So if there are issues with CR, using the list and bugs.centos.org
>>>> would
>>>> be good.
>>>> BTW : the goal of CR is exactly to find those issues earlier and then
>>>> write Release Notes with workarounds/warnings
>> So in an effort to narrow down the problem I also have an old Samsung
>> laptop - i5 with an nvidia card - all up-to-date 7.5 - I thought I would
>> try a more conservative upgrade approach.
>>
>> first updated to the CR kernel with yum upgrade kernel*
>>
>> then after successful reboot did an update to gdm* and gnome*
>>
>> another reboot and all is well
>>
>> then update of xorg* (only 20 files)
>>
>> Now it will not boot - keyboard is non responsive so cannot even do a
>> Ctrl Alt F2 to access a shell. Old kernel is also non boot. Left this
>> machine for now and back to my main desktop workstation.
>>
>> No idea if this xorg problem relates to my original workstation - so on
>> that machine I did a downgrade of xorg* - seemed to complete ok, but on
>> reboot and login - still the same problem.
>>
>> As the only clue in the logs is the libc segfault I did a downgrade of
>> glibc - this too seemed to work but no change to the system - gnome
>> crashes after 5 - 10 seconds.
>>
>> Wasted far too much time on this, no idea what to do now so I have done
>> a fresh 7.5 install and all works again - just need to install all the
>> additional stuff I use each day, but at least I have a desktop that
>> functions.
>>
>> I will wait until 7.6 is officially released, watch the list for a week
>> or two and then with much fear and trepidation give it a go. <sad face>
>>
>> As a long time user of CentOS (well over a decade - I started with 5.x
>> workstations, then had a couple of 6.x, and used two 7.x machines, not
>> counting my servers), I must observe that the core server stuff "just
>> works" e.g. mail, mysql / mariadb, postfix, dovecot, apache, php. Even
>> the migration to libreoffice was okay.
>>
>> The major version upgrades each gave an all over better desktop
>> experience. What has also happened however is that some of the 7.x
>> upgrades have been difficult to deal with - one of the recent firefox
>> updates lost all my local password databases which I do not back up to
>> the cloud for obvious reasons. Unable to resolve the instability after
>> many hours of testing and trialing combinations, I have left firefox and
>> moved to vivaldi - we'll see how that works. As upstream seems to
>> include more bleeding edge versions of major desktop utilities such as
>> firefox, stability has been compromised.
>>
>> Now with this latest CR update, I have no idea if it is gnome, gdm, xorg
>> or some other component, but to have two quite differently configured
>> machines both loose their desktops, I am unhappy. The use of roll back
>> of over 800 files just didn't pass the transaction test thus that too
>> was futile.
>>
>> I thought the approach I used with my laptop today was sufficiently
>> cautious, yet it caught me and I am still trying to work out what to do
>> next.
>>
>> As always, happy to entertain ideas and suggestions. My main workstation
>> however is now safely working at a clean install of 7.5, thus cannot do
>> further tests there, life must go on, four days of down time is far too
>> much.
>>
>> Also let me give a heartfelt thanks to the hard working CentOS team, I
>> see the more and more difficult task you need to navigate with each
>> major update, you do an outstanding task, and I am most grateful!
> The big question remains, what did you install which is not part of the
> base CentOS distribution? You mentioned vivaldi browser, Nvidia stuff,
> what else did you install from EPEL or other sources? I mean, is it
> possible in your case that something causes problems now which is not part
> of CentOS?
It is possible - I have now got a new clean install of 7.5 and am slowly 
making that workable, thus unable to do further testing until I do the 
7.6 upgrade, which I will hold off until Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 1650634 
is resolved - this looks like the exact issue my laptop has stumbled in 
to. Will need to use a rescue USB to try the xorg downgrade on that as 
it also crashes the keyboard.


>
> Regards,
> Simon
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos