[SOLVED] testing updates will delete sysvinit-core: help?

[quixote]

Plain old end user who runs testing because I like the up to date packages. I try to avoid breakage. (I know, I know. All wrong. Bear with me.)

A few days ago, apper started giving me the error message: "A previous package management transaction was interrupted." None was, as far as I know. And the Details says: "The following packages have unmet dependencies: libpam-depends: systemd-sysv but it is not going to be installed."

If I try "sudo apt-get upgrade" it says it will delete sysvinit-core and some other very important-sounding packages. Scary.

Looking around, I see that Debian is changing its way of handling init scripts. That's fine by me (I see a good bit of arguing about it ) but I just want to be sure I don't bork my system with the upgrade.

So what's my best alternative? Wait to do any updates until jessie becomes stable?? Go ahead and update because it's not as scary as it sounds? Something else? I think maybe we could really use a sticky about this because there's lots of us not-really-testers using testing out here.

I'd be real grateful for some wise guidance!

[dasein]

Wait to do any updates until jessie becomes stable?

This would be my suggestion. Testing is only going to get more broken, more often over the next few weeks and months, as devs rush to get packages included in anticipation of the freeze.

But you should know that. You've been through this twice before.

[quixote]

Thanks for the reply, dasein. I'll do that: just hold off on updates. Everything's working just how I like it now.

The hard part is going to be keeping my curious fingers off that Update button.



Must. Not. Push. Update. Button. ... Must. Not. ...

[mor]

You know that waiting on updates at this point means at least about six but more likely eight+ months before Jessie is releases as the new Stable right?
And when the time comes this removal is most likely gonna hit you anyway in the midst of a huge overhaul which will definitely break things on your system if you do all the updates at once.

I think you have to dig deep now and understand what is requiring sysvinit-core to be removed, most likely it is the transition to systemd, but you are KDE user (I assume from apper) and I don't know how unavoidable systemd is for KDE (unlike for Gnome) so maybe there is a simpler way than to just hold off all updates for many months on testing.

Re-thinking testing?

[roseway]

You can easily check if systemd works on your system, by hitting 'e' at the grub menu and editing the line which starts 'linux' to use systemd just this once. Just before the 'ro' item add

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init=/bin/systemd

Then press F10 to boot it.

If it boots successfully you can have more confidence about accepting the upgrades now.

[quixote]

Eric, thanks for that! Will try it soonest. Edited to add: YES! it boots. It actually boots better than before. (I'd lost the "sleep" option for a while there and had to do it command line, which was a bother.) So I guess I'll take that big mitten off my hand and let myself push Y for update. Oh, and, yes, I am using KDE.

As for re-thinking testing, um, no, yes, maybe, I actually like it, I don't mind a leetle bit of breakage, but major-non-booting-type breakage?, hmm, um, [and recycle from the beginning].

Knowing what happens when there are hundreds of updates piled up is what makes me want to not go there.

Okay, one more update. Updated and everything works fine. However, it is holding back 41 packages, systemd being one of them. ?? What's up with that? I put the item about using init=/bin/systemd in my /etc/default/grub so it'll use my current systemd since it boots so much better with that. But I don't know if the not-upgraded packages are a problem are not. One relevant point is that I have held iceweasel to v24 because I can't stand Australis. But that's never caused that level of strange behavior before. Is the 41 not upgraded a different issue and should I mark this thread solved?

[quixote]

Just to tell the end of the story: The 41 updates listed kept failing because Apper complained about systemd-sysv being required by the libpam upgrade but not set to be installed. So I tried

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sudo apt-get install systemd-sysv

which wanted to delete some things and pull in a few dependencies, but nothing that looked like a showstopper. After it completed, I restarted. It booted okay. (Phew!) Then Apper popped up with it's updates again. 37 this time, I think. Anyway, I told it to go ahead, it did, everything installed. I rebooted. Aaand ... I'm still here!

Thanks for your help, Debianites! Couldn't have done it without you.