Debian: Stretch(ing) to Buster

I had this on my TODO list for quite sometime, so, this a lousy grey, rainy Sunday that kept me from pedaling seeing the GF, thought of it as an ideal day to undertake this monumental task...

- Updated the system on Stretch.

- Edited the file /etc/apt/sources.list, changed "stretch" for "buster".

- Updated the system: sudo apt update

- Upgraded the system: sudo apt upgrade

- Full upgraded the system: sudo apt full-upgrade

- Reboot

- Profit

Everything seems to be running just fine, but I have to configure some stuff (for instance adding the Genmon plugin to the XFCE Panel).
The whole thing took about two hours, and it downloaded something like 1 GB of files.

The Risks of Not Updating Sid on a While

This is what happens when you don't update Sid in a while... 166 packages need to be updated.
Guess in this case, I haven't updated it on something like 3 weeks.

Livin' On The Edge

I like to live dangerously.
Everything is A Ok after the updates and a reboot.

Note To Self

Never update when running low on battery...
In order to get apt-get to a working condition, I had to issue a:

sudo dpkg --configure -a

And then:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get --fix-broken install
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
And finally, things got back to normal.

Linux Mint 18.3 on The MacBook White 3.1

Yesterday updated Linux Mint (XFCE) on the MacBook White to 18.3.
The update, of course, went smooth but, after the update, came the newer kernels.
And that's when the problems started.
The newest kernel (4.15.0-48) works, that is, the lappie does boot and you can use it, WiFi works, etc. etc.
But it took ages to boot, and then, once on the LightDM login manager it also took quite a while to actually be able to type anything and then again it took quite a lot of time to get a working Desktop, once past the login manager.
It was unbearable a true PITA.
What I did was to revert to an older kernel, but it took a while since I wasn't able to access the GRUB menu (via Shift key upon booting) not sure if that was because I'm running an encrypted LVM or waht a hell, but the only option was to boot the newest (and slowest) kernel and then edit the file "/etc/default/grub" and add the option GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE="menu" to the end of the file, and then, after a sudo update-grub and a reboot I was able to choose the kernel I want to boot.
Didn't have time to investigate the slowdown for the moment using an older kernel on the lappie let me regain control of it.

Problems with MySQL after an unattended-upgrades

Wake up this Labor Day to a couple of emails from the Monit on remote a server, reporting a problem with the MySQL process.
Checking the emails from that server, this is what the unattended-upgrades email reported:

Checking if update is needed.
Checking server version.
Error: Server version (5.7.25-0ubuntu0.16.04.2) does not match with the version of
the server (5.7.26) with which this program was built/distributed. You can
use --skip-version-check to skip this check.
mysql_upgrade failed with exit status 3
dpkg: error processing package mysql-server-5.7 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script\
 returned error exit status 1

Got onto the server, and this is what the MySQL error log (/var/log/mysql/error.log) reported:

2019-05-01T06:25:42.111425Z 0 [ERROR] InnoDB: Unable to lock ./ibdata1 error: 11
2019-05-01T06:25:42.111470Z 0 [Note] InnoDB: Check that you do not already have another mysqld\
 process using the same InnoDB data or log files.

So, this usually means that there are more than one MySQL server running.
First thing first, stop MySQL, and then, kill any other MySQL process by hand.
Then, run apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade, this finished the MySQL update A Ok.
Then started the MySQL server, and everything was kosher.

Back to Mint, Back to Life

Yesterday and part of today was devoted to migrate to Linux Mint two lappies that were sporting Debian Stretch.
Not really a problem with Stretch, in fact, it was really cool and light, but since I needed to re-install on those two, decided to go ahead and install a release that will get updates up until 2023, instead of Stretch's 2020.

(Finally) Get Your Oreo (And Install It Too)

Wednesday night updated the Android version on my beloved G4 Plus up to Oreo, this release it took ages to be available down here, I mean, for the G4, but it is finally here.
The update went smooth.

Gazillion of Updates on Stable

Loads of updates yesterday... First time I see that many updates on one shot on Stable.
Of course, no problem whatsoever after installing everything and rebooting, so far installed these on the XPS M1330 (pictured) as well as the Optiplex 755.

Sunday Kernel Crud Deletion Mode

Did a little house cleaning on the old and trusty Acer... About 1.5 GB of old kernels down the drain... Seems like I've forgotten about the old and sort of dependable lappie.

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  linux-headers-3.13.0-153 linux-headers-3.13.0-153-generic
  linux-image-3.13.0-153-generic linux-image-extra-3.13.0-153-generic
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  linux-headers-3.13.0-139* linux-headers-3.13.0-139-generic*
  linux-headers-3.13.0-141* linux-headers-3.13.0-141-generic*
  linux-headers-3.13.0-143* linux-headers-3.13.0-143-generic*
  linux-headers-3.13.0-144* linux-headers-3.13.0-144-generic*
  linux-headers-3.13.0-147* linux-headers-3.13.0-147-generic*
  linux-headers-3.13.0-149* linux-headers-3.13.0-149-generic*
  linux-headers-3.13.0-151* linux-headers-3.13.0-151-generic*
  linux-image-3.13.0-139-generic* linux-image-3.13.0-141-generic*
  linux-image-3.13.0-143-generic* linux-image-3.13.0-144-generic*
  linux-image-3.13.0-147-generic* linux-image-3.13.0-149-generic*
  linux-image-3.13.0-151-generic* linux-image-extra-3.13.0-139-generic*
  linux-image-extra-3.13.0-141-generic* linux-image-extra-3.13.0-143-generic*
  linux-image-extra-3.13.0-144-generic* linux-image-extra-3.13.0-147-generic*
  linux-image-extra-3.13.0-149-generic* linux-image-extra-3.13.0-151-generic*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 28 to remove and 24 not upgraded.
After this operation, 1,575 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

The First of Many (To Be Deleted)

The other day it was time to install a new one, and now time to delete an old one.
Life, right? What can I say... :p

The First of Many

Kernel update for the T60 and its current incarnation with Devuan.

Linux Mint Debian 2 On The T60p

Installed Linux Mint Debian 2 (Betsy) on the T60p this week -this time I selected Cinnamon as the DE- just to see how things were over there, it has been 5 years since the last time I've tested it.

This time I was able to encrypt my shit, no problems in that department.
But, I'm sucker I know, after the install was over, and after a couple of reboots to make sure the encrypted LVM was working Ok, I chose a local mirror... That sort of borked things up, in a bad way... After installing about 400 MB of updates and rebooting, I wasn't able to login thur MDM to Cinnamon. I was able to login on a Virtual Console, and of course, the LVM encryption presented no problems whatsoever.
I even try creating another user, and tested things with it, but same thing... I wasn't able to login to Cinnamon, that is, I wasn't able to go past the MDM login.
In the end, thru a TTY I had to change mirrors, get updates once again, but also, had to re-install Cinnamon, issuing a:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall cinnamon

After that, I was able to login onto Cinnamon.
Anyways, everything was kosher, Cinnamon is lovely, but, it is way too demanding RAM wise... Right after booting it was at about 500MB on idle, but that went thru the roof once I've start to open stuff on the t60p... Its 3GB simply don't cut it.
Will go with Devuan I guess...

Void Linux + Thinkpad T60p: Sort of Fail

Installed Void Linux today, this time on the T60p, everything went A Ok with the installation, even encrypting the whole disk, on a LVM, like I said, the whole thing reminds me a lot to the FreeBSD/ OpenBSD installer, the "hardest" part is the partitioning.
Anyways, after the base install is done, mandatory reboot, login, even with encryption, everything kosher.
So, boot and on we go to the updates!
After a xbps-install -Suv and downloading some 500 MB of updates, another reboot, and now things went to hell...

Booting passes the encryption, and the login manager pops up A Ok... Login works; but...
After that X dies on me, with an error message like this:

nm-dispatcher: req:1 'hostname' : new request (0 scripts)
nm-dispatcher: req:1 'hostname' : completed: no scripts

Tried re-booting using different kernels, killing Network Manager from a Virtual Console, Ctrl + Alt + Backspace, etc...
Nothing, the whole thing just dies right there.
A real bummer... No more time right now to see what a fuck is wrong with this.

Mirror, Mirror

Well, this is a new one...
It popped up this morning, I've never seeing this error in the years running Mint.
Simply changed the mirror, as the same error message suggests, and everything seems to be A Ok.

Deleting Old Kernels

This is how I'm deleting old kernel nowadays.
The idea is to do it easily, but most important, safely.

First off, get the running kernel, never delete this one ;)

uname -a

And then get the list of all the installed kernels (and related stuff):

dpkg --get-selections | grep linux-headers && dpkg --get-selections | grep linux-image

This is a sample list of the output of the above:

And then, simply delete the ones you don't like:

sudo apt-get purge linux-image-4.4.0-119-generic\
 linux-headers-4.4.0-119-generic linux-image-extra-4.4.0-119-generic

In this case, deleting the kernel 4.4.0-119 and all related files.

The Reluctant Kernel Update

Maybe I'm having a senior moment here, not really sure, but I sincerely don't recall seeing this before...
Usually all the kernel updates, thru Linux Mint's Update Manager, come in pairs, a package for the Kernel, and another for headers, but this time only one Kernel is available for update. I've seeing this on a couple of my lappies, except the MacBook White, where Update Manager offered to install both packages.
Tested the (somewhat cropped) install on the T60p, and everything went A Ok, even after a reboot, needless to say, all of the Kernel packages were installed.

To Dev & Write And Back Again

Well... The little Flip is back on the reservation.
That is, got it back under (full) control, even turned back from the Developer Mode.
The experiment I did to customize the cursor icons on Chrome OS went nowhere at all.
I'm pleasantly surprised as how easy got to be to get out and back onto the Google/ Chrome OS reservation.

VirtualBox: The Updated Problem

There was a problem with Monday's updates for Virtualbox on Linux Mint.
Once installed, they blew things up rather violently, depending on your setup, you could either end up with a box that couldn't login (via the graphical login manager) or (my case) with a box that wasn't able to run programs.
Right after installing this update on the MacBook Pro programs (some of them, not every single one) refused to load, and those that didn't they didn't even produce an error message, really annoying, right?

In the end, the fix for the update shenanigans was pretty easy to do, but the really cool thing is that Linux Mint released a fix for this update right the same day.

Patching For The Inevitable

Installed a new firmware on the router at chez Oesediez today.
No doubt it is already old & owned even before I installed it.