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[SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have lost track of where it's at?

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este.el.paz
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[SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have lost track of where it's at?

#1 Post by este.el.paz »

Folks:

This is one of those, "I've fallen and I can't get up" incidences, where Sid seems to have "lost track" of itself and won't let grub2 boot it up. I'm running Sid in the first SSD drive slot of 4 drive '12 cMacPro . . . multiboot with roughly 8 bare metal linux distros spread across 3 of the drives.

Over the last few months I have had to reboot to grub2 a couple of times to get Sid to boot. A few times, rather than booting Sid, the grub list booted the Bookworm partition . . . so all hasn't been exactly "smooth" with getting to Sid. The other 7 distros of various ilk seem to be able to "find themselves" . . . .

This morning I tried about 4 cold boots selecting the Sid line item and then "advanced options" all of them said, "Failed to mount /dev/sda6" which is where everybody else seems to locate Sid's "/" . . . but Sid has relocated to /dev/sdc6 . . . but that drive contains the same installs of OSX that everybody else sees as "sda" . . . ???

I got my SuperGrub2 ext disk out and used it to boot "gpt6"?? (cant remember, but it is the same drive as "sda" according to all the other distros) . . . and Sid "found itself" . . . . I ran lsblk -f and cat /etc/fstab and the UUID's seem to be the correct numbers, but Sid is still looking for them in a place where they aren't??

Any way to clean this up?? Sid is not the master grub controller, that task is held by the Tumbleweed distro install in . . . sda . . . .

Code: Select all

Mac-Pro:~$ lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda
├─sda1
│    vfat   FAT32 EFI   67E3-17ED
├─sda2
│    hfsplu       MacintoUno
│                       8037621e-c63c-3884-bfb4-729282cf76fd
├─sda3
│    hfsplu       Recovery HD
│                       15f8192a-a9d0-3409-a5b9-084fc913ca7e
├─sda4
│    hfsplu       MacintoDos
│                       6073161c-00c1-3827-9f81-000472e23582
├─sda5
│    ext4   1.0         9f39fc44-d590-4a43-9544-56ad458a9e6e
├─sda6
│    ext4   1.0         d4853378-2816-4678-8308-1f245d9123ac
├─sda7
│    ext4   1.0         17bcb813-d05e-4cc3-bcdf-16d283156780
├─sda8
│    ext4   1.0         598d1ebe-6ad9-4491-b95a-7540208c28e3
└─sda9
     swap   1           9f6eba2a-d229-46db-95f1-2ad02a072573                [SWAP]
sdb
├─sdb1
│    vfat   FAT32 EFI   67E3-17ED
├─sdb2
│    hfsplu       1Macinto
│                       632a31b3-7430-3c28-a992-c92271adfa58
├─sdb3
│    hfsplu       2Macinto
│                       93f0ad8c-baed-3a31-8811-56b4a5cc6765
├─sdb4
│    hfsplu       Recovery HD
│                       11b8a168-b278-3d38-8df7-daee4fec3d35
├─sdb5
│    hfsplu       3MacintoMavrik
│                       ee616cc5-97f5-3568-8841-0fdd4585518e
├─sdb6
│    hfsplu       Recovery HD
│                       f302e724-0e2f-3227-a959-8e503830e899
├─sdb7
│    ext4   1.0         4b916772-18f6-4b7c-b47c-eb0fa3796eff
├─sdb8
│    ext4   1.0         2779207b-54a2-4b94-a7df-75edd1de9831
├─sdb9
│    ext4   1.0         ab58c2d1-47b2-4b63-9b1c-b86c4f182c8e
├─sdb10
│    ext4   1.0         64c5dba2-bacd-4459-9904-6bda0fbe24e7
├─sdb11
│    swap   1           6f309bf5-93b4-46eb-8f97-547484cb160f                [SWAP]
└─sdb12
     ext4   1.0         3554b8bd-99e5-4343-81a9-fc69b7c0a6db
sdc
├─sdc1
│    vfat   FAT32 EFI   67E3-17ED
├─sdc2
│    hfsplu       High Sierra
│                       a2775dc9-eb23-316b-a4d8-7d4361ba2dad
├─sdc3
│    hfsplu       Recovery HD
│                       4815c1b0-16a2-3b33-b224-1be9a3e9d181
├─sdc4
│    hfsplu       FutureShock
│                       3a958b85-2be4-36cb-a8bc-6d470790d9ff
├─sdc5
│    vfat   FAT32       E592-ECD3                             282.1M     1% /boot/efi
├─sdc6
│    ext4   1.0         3e85351d-cdde-417e-a0d4-b00feb074e3d   34.8G    19% /
├─sdc7
│    ext4   1.0         929e9949-2d18-424c-be4a-80166827335b
├─sdc8
│    ext4   1.0         3011fcb2-1618-4d9a-975a-6426eb7e0f8e
├─sdc9
│    swap   1           40d5e4ad-c094-4a07-93cb-aba54909ebdf                [SWAP]
└─sdc10
     ext4   1.0         50f7f65f-5963-49a9-b091-995afbf66e26  140.6G     2% /home
sdd
├─sdd1
│    vfat   FAT32 EFI   67E3-17ED
└─sdd2
     apfs               adb56592-c260-4620-b298-be3e012b5e57
sde
├─sde1
│    vfat   FAT32 SG2DBOOT
│                       B5B2-9BB7                              15.7M    52% /media/02/SG2DBOOT
└─sde2
     vfat   FAT32 SG2DISOS
                        B575-ABAB                             263.5M     0% /media/02/SG2DISOS
sr0





Mac-Pro:~$ sudo cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# systemd generates mount units based on this file, see systemd.mount(5).
# Please run 'systemctl daemon-reload' after making changes here.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=3e85351d-cdde-417e-a0d4-b00feb074e3d /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
# /boot/efi was on /dev/sda1 during installation
UUID=E592-ECD3  /boot/efi       vfat    umask=0077      0       1
# /home was on /dev/sda10 during installation
UUID=50f7f65f-5963-49a9-b091-995afbf66e26 /home           ext4    defaults        0       2
# swap was on /dev/sda9 during installation
UUID=40d5e4ad-c094-4a07-93cb-aba54909ebdf none            swap    sw              0       0
# swap was on /dev/sdb11 during installation
UUID=6f309bf5-93b4-46eb-8f97-547484cb160f none            swap    sw              0       0
# swap was on /dev/sdc9 during installation
UUID=9f6eba2a-d229-46db-95f1-2ad02a072573 none            swap    sw              0       0
/dev/sr0        /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto     0       0
Mac-Pro:~$
Last edited by este.el.paz on 2023-01-18 01:11, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have track of where it's at?

#2 Post by Aki »

Hello,
este.el.paz wrote: 2023-01-17 17:03 I ran lsblk -f and cat /etc/fstab and the UUID's seem to be the correct numbers, but Sid is still looking for them in a place where they aren't?? [..]

Code: Select all

Mac-Pro:~$ lsblk -f
NAME FSTYPE FSVER LABEL UUID                                 FSAVAIL FSUSE% MOUNTPOINTS
sda
[..]
├─sda6
│    ext4   1.0         d4853378-2816-4678-8308-1f245d9123ac
[..]
sdb
[..]
├─sdb6
│    hfsplu       Recovery HD
│                       f302e724-0e2f-3227-a959-8e503830e899
[..]
sdc
[...]
├─sdc6
│    ext4   1.0         3e85351d-cdde-417e-a0d4-b00feb074e3d   34.8G    19% /
├─sdc7
│    ext4   1.0         929e9949-2d18-424c-be4a-80166827335b
├─sdc8
│    ext4   1.0         3011fcb2-1618-4d9a-975a-6426eb7e0f8e
├─sdc9
│    swap   1           40d5e4ad-c094-4a07-93cb-aba54909ebdf                [SWAP]
└─sdc10
     ext4   1.0         50f7f65f-5963-49a9-b091-995afbf66e26  140.6G     2% /home
[..]

Mac-Pro:~$ sudo cat /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# Use 'blkid' to print the universally unique identifier for a
# device; this may be used with UUID= as a more robust way to name devices
# that works even if disks are added and removed. See fstab(5).
#
# systemd generates mount units based on this file, see systemd.mount(5).
# Please run 'systemctl daemon-reload' after making changes here.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
# / was on /dev/sda6 during installation
UUID=3e85351d-cdde-417e-a0d4-b00feb074e3d /               ext4    errors=remount-ro 0       1
[..]
Probably you already know that the order in which the kernel recognizes the partition is not fixed and can change across boots.

What is the UUID of the root partition of Debian Sid ? If it was /dev/sda6 at install time and therefore its UUID is 3e85351d-cdde-417e-a0d4-b00feb074e3d, then it was recognized by the lsblk command as /dev/sdc6 in your previous log.

grub should be configured to use the UUID, otherwise it could fail to recognize the correct partition across boot.

What are the contents of /boot/grub/grub.cfg in Sid partition ?

Does it boot using UEFI or legacy boot ?
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have track of where it's at?

#3 Post by este.el.paz »

Aki wrote: 2023-01-17 17:30 Hello,
[
Probably you already know that the order in which the kernel recognizes the partition is not fixed and can change across boots.

What is the UUID of the root partition of Debian Sid ? If it was /dev/sda6 at install time and therefore its UUID is 3e85351d-cdde-417e-a0d4-b00feb074e3d, then it was recognized by the lsblk command as /dev/sdc6 in your previous log.

grub should be configured to use the UUID, otherwise it could fail to recognize the correct partition across boot.

What are the contents of /boot/grub/grub.cfg in Sid partition ?

Does it boot using UEFI or legacy boot ?
@Aki

Thanks for the reply . . . I haven't really gone under the hood on the grub configuration . . . over the years of multi-booting there have been many issues with grub, such that just having it work is a major accomplishment. So, as far as having it use "UUID" right now that is beyond my pay grade; as it is, all of the "other kids" have no issues finding themselves and booting up using grub . . . only Sid seems to have this problem with "lack of grub identity."

So, ran your suggested command . . . came back as "file not found" . . . not sure if that is because grub is not installed in Sid, Sid is just a line item in the GUI grub menu, like all of the other "kids." I believe it would likely be found in the TW partition??

Code: Select all

$ sudo cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg
[sudo] password for: 
cat: /boot/grub/grub.cfg: No such file or directory
Mac has historically used UEFI boot . . . .

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have track of where it's at?

#4 Post by Aki »

Hello,

I'm sorry, I'm not an expert of Macs' boot process.

Anyway, in the case of UEFI boot, the UEFI firmware search for the grub boot loader (named grubx64.efi) in a EFI System Partition (ESP): as far I can see, you have an ESP partition for each disk. I don't know which one is used by the UEFI firmware to bootstrap Debian in your computer.

A file named grub.cfg is in the directory /EFI/debian/ of this ESP partition.

For example, in my computer (not a Mac) if I mount the ESP partition in /mnt from an external EFI bootable disk (recognized as /dev/sdb), I can inspect it:

Code: Select all

# mount /deb/sdb1 /mnt
# pwd
/mnt/EFI/debian

# ls -l
totale 5892
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     108 12 gen 16.29 BOOTX64.CSV
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   84648 12 gen 16.29 fbx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     126 12 gen 16.29 grub.cfg
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4150720 12 gen 16.29 grubx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  845480 12 gen 16.29 mmx64.efi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  934240 12 gen 16.29 shimx64.efi

# cat grub.cfg 
search.fs_uuid f1e42e7e-8215-4956-b0a2-eed32f08c053 root hd1,gpt2 
set prefix=($root)'/boot/grub'
configfile $prefix/grub.cfg
For example, in the aforementioned UEFI bootable external disk:

Code: Select all

# blkid | grep sdb
/dev/sdb1: UUID="DDA9-AF83" BLOCK_SIZE="512" TYPE="vfat" PARTUUID="8dd84dd4-3b60-4237-8417-76906c190387"
/dev/sdb2: LABEL="mydisk" UUID="f1e42e7e-8215-4956-b0a2-eed32f08c053" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="2c540645-cb23-4d8d-af8c-6018f8e5bcb0"
/dev/sdb3: UUID="30e90857-9dcb-40c2-b8e4-7229a68ad8d7" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="3baaf230-39d2-4a27-b7af-494e95ce90a3"
As you can see, the Debian boot/root partition /dev/sdb2 has UUID=f1e42e7e-8215-4956-b0a2-eed32f08c053.

The same UUID identifies debian's boot/root partition in the /EFI/debian/grub.cfg file in the ESP partition (/dev/sdb1).

Therefore, in my example, the UEFI grub boot loader named grubx64.efi search for the boot/root partition UUID=f1e42e7e-8215-4956-b0a2-eed32f08c053 and access to the contents of /boot/grub/grub.cfg inside it to load the grub's default menu.

The Mac should work the same way.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have track of where it's at?

#5 Post by este.el.paz »

@Aki

Thanks for posting that data . . . . That might give me some clues to check out, but I think the complication is the grub controller is in another system, so I'll have to study your suggestions and then try to run a few commands to see if what you are showing me, will show up in some kind of overt/obvious way . . . ???

It may take me some time to figure that out . . . I'll post back if and when I've either been able to emulate it, or if I fail, etc. :?: :shock:

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have track of where it's at?

#6 Post by milomak »

if you are using a mac, why don't you use one of the bootloaders created for it. from my experience a few years back they generally picked up linux uefi partitions quite well
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have track of where it's at?

#7 Post by este.el.paz »

milomak wrote: 2023-01-17 21:02 if you are using a mac, why don't you use one of the bootloaders created for it. from my experience a few years back they generally picked up linux uefi partitions quite well
@milomak

If only that were the case . . . possibly in the newest macs that might be possible?? But, historically OSX was not "friendly" with non-OSX distros and would re-write the UUID numbers . . . . There aren't too many multi-booters out there, so it took me years to find out that, as we used to do with PPC linux, where the EFI partition was shared with OSX . . . which allowed OSX updates to then mess with linux . . . . To now, creating a new ESP which is for linux only . . . but haven't had any luck with getting the OSX bootloader to actually boot anything from that disk . . . it goes to "recovery" grub?? . . . .

This machine is running a few OSX distros, up to 10.15??using a patcher?? Nothing newer on a '12 machine . . . .

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have track of where it's at?

#8 Post by milomak »

este.el.paz wrote: 2023-01-17 21:57
milomak wrote: 2023-01-17 21:02 if you are using a mac, why don't you use one of the bootloaders created for it. from my experience a few years back they generally picked up linux uefi partitions quite well
@milomak

If only that were the case . . . possibly in the newest macs that might be possible?? But, historically OSX was not "friendly" with non-OSX distros and would re-write the UUID numbers . . . . There aren't too many multi-booters out there, so it took me years to find out that, as we used to do with PPC linux, where the EFI partition was shared with OSX . . . which allowed OSX updates to then mess with linux . . . . To now, creating a new ESP which is for linux only . . . but haven't had any luck with getting the OSX bootloader to actually boot anything from that disk . . . it goes to "recovery" grub?? . . . .

This machine is running a few OSX distros, up to 10.15??using a patcher?? Nothing newer on a '12 machine . . . .
i ran sid on a mbp4,1

then ran it on an imac after that

i think i used multibeast. grub-efi was installed to the linux partition. multibeast would pick it up and it would load the latest grub-efi after any kernel update. it also picked the other linux distros that were on that disk.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have track of where it's at?

#9 Post by este.el.paz »

milomak wrote: 2023-01-17 22:20

i ran sid on a mbp4,1

then ran it on an imac after that

i think i used multibeast. grub-efi was installed to the linux partition. multibeast would pick it up and it would load the latest grub-efi after any kernel update. it also picked the other linux distros that were on that disk.
@milomak

Alrighty, the key difference would be the "multibeast" aspect . . . which I believe is part of the "Hackintosh" realm?? Have not tried to run OSX on a non-Mac.

There was a time when the intel Mcs had to use rEFInd to get linux running, but once linux came out with the "EFI boot" option there was no need for it. I just use the linux installer to format partitions and install into, etc. My problem is that I just kept slicing and dicing and installing more linux distros and it got "complicated."

I have noticed that ubuntu seems to want to be the "only kid on the block" and if it is in charge of grub it cuts everybody else off the menu. Possibly it got that behavior from it's "daddy"????? And it seems to have re-written something so that it lost track of itself???

Probably be a couple days before I'll be able to work my way back to having time to mess with fixing mr Sid, to bring it into astral alignment with grub, again.

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have lost track of where it's at?

#10 Post by sunrat »

In Sid and Testing, GRUB does not run os-prober to find other installations. You need to set

Code: Select all

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false
in /etc/default/grub to enable it and run "update-grub".

Whether that's your issue or not IDK, but it's new for Bookworm.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have track of where it's at?

#11 Post by Aki »

Hello,
este.el.paz wrote: 2023-01-17 19:56 @Aki
Thanks for posting that data . . . . That might give me some clues to check out, but I think the complication is the grub controller is in another system, so I'll have to study your suggestions and then try to run a few commands to see if what you are showing me, will show up in some kind of overt/obvious way . . . ??? It may take me some time to figure that out . . . I'll post back if and when I've either been able to emulate it, or if I fail, etc. :?: :shock:
Sure, let me know if I can be of any help to you.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have lost track of where it's at?

#12 Post by este.el.paz »

Spent some time trying to troubleshoot the "Sid not finding itself" problem . . . still seem to be in the dark on it. Ran some of the commands in TW, which is the grub master controller, from what is posted it looks like what TW calls "sda6" has the same UUID as what Sid calls "sdc6" . . . ?? Possibly compounding the problem is that, in the grub listing Bookworm is in . . . "sdc6"???

Code: Select all

# /mnt/EFI/debian
bash: /mnt/EFI/debian: No such file or directory

# /mnt/EFI/opensuse
bash: /mnt/EFI/opensuse: Is a directory
 # cat grub.cfg
cat: grub.cfg: No such file or directory
 # blkid | grep sda
 /dev/sda6: UUID="3e85351d-cdde-417e-a0d4-b00feb074e3d" BLOCK_SIZE="4096" TYPE="ext4" PARTUUID="cf71342d-0916-4dfa-94ed-c971f8b68b54"

 # cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg
cat: /boot/grub/grub.cfg: No such file or directory
In theory, tomorrow should be "Sid" day . . . so, I just ran #update-bootloader in TW . . . we'll see if Sid has been brought back into the grub fold, or, if it is still wandering in the desert of lost UUIDs??

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have lost track of where it's at?

#13 Post by Aki »

Hello,

The persistence of disks' devices names across bootstraps cannot be guaranteed by Linux Kernel.

Therefore, it is recommended to use the UUID to identify partitions in configuration files (where allowed, as in /etc/fstab).

The UUID in the /etc/fstab (in the root partition of Debian) and the UUID used by grub (to search for the Debian root partition) have to be the same.
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have lost track of where it's at?

#14 Post by este.el.paz »

Aki wrote: 2023-01-25 13:34 Hello,

The persistence of disks' devices names across bootstraps cannot be guaranteed by Linux Kernel.

Therefore, it is recommended to use the UUID to identify partitions in configuration files (where allowed, as in /etc/fstab).

The UUID in the /etc/fstab (in the root partition of Debian) and the UUID used by grub (to search for the Debian root partition) have to be the same.
@Aki

Thanks for the reminder on the /etc/fstab . . . been busy with life stuff haven't had time to fully try to figure this out. I did TRY to boot Sid yesterday and it took itself to the Bookworm system . . . .

But, which of the commands is going to show me the grub/Debian root partition UUID??? Has that not shown up already, and now I'd have to compare that to the /etc/fstab UUID??? :?:

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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have lost track of where it's at?

#15 Post by este.el.paz »

este.el.paz wrote: 2023-01-25 15:30
Aki wrote: 2023-01-25 13:34 Hello,

The persistence of disks' devices names across bootstraps cannot be guaranteed by Linux Kernel.

Therefore, it is recommended to use the UUID to identify partitions in configuration files (where allowed, as in /etc/fstab).

The UUID in the /etc/fstab (in the root partition of Debian) and the UUID used by grub (to search for the Debian root partition) have to be the same.
@Aki

Thanks for the reminder on the /etc/fstab . . . been busy with life stuff haven't had time to fully try to figure this out. I did TRY to boot Sid yesterday and it took itself to the Bookworm system . . . .

But, which of the commands is going to show me the grub/Debian root partition UUID??? Has that not shown up already, and now I'd have to compare that to the /etc/fstab UUID??? :?:
@Aki

So I had a few minutes to boot Sid yesterday and it ran through the dmesg and I saw a number of "Failed to start Gnome Display Manager" and then **just like in my Bookworm install on my Gaz15** the "recovery" or the flashing cursor is all that loads. So you provided some advice on the other thread to edit the /etc/apt/sources.list in that system to add in some "non-free-firmware" which may relate to the nvidia card in that machine (I use nouveau) . . . anyway, I thought I'd try the same move in Sid on my Mac Pro to see if that would bring Sid back to the GUI.

Logged in via TTY and cat-ed the sourceslist . . . it showed a single line that was uncommented with "unstable" mentioned, so then I tried to nano it adding in your two lines, one for regular "deb.debian" and the other "debian-security" . . . when I tried to write it out it errored out, "this is read-only" . . . ???? Tried it a couple of times using "root@xxx" and "sudo" could not get the lines added???

Ran out of time for Sid and had to move on, can't remember if I tried to "dist-upgrade" to see if it would add packages. I started off trying to "sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm3" to try to see if that would get the GUI to load, but that command "wasn't recognized"??

Later today I might have time to try to run the same suggestions through the newer machine in Bookworm and see how that goes . . . so far Sid is busted down by the side of the freeway . . . . : - 0

Aki
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have lost track of where it's at?

#16 Post by Aki »

Hello,
este.el.paz wrote: 2023-02-18 16:29 [..] Logged in via TTY and cat-ed the sourceslist . . . it showed a single line that was uncommented with "unstable" mentioned, so then I tried to nano it adding in your two lines, one for regular "deb.debian" and the other "debian-security" . . .
"unstable" is another name for "Sid", the unstable development release of Debian [1].
este.el.paz wrote: 2023-02-18 16:29 [..] when I tried to write it out it errored out, "this is read-only" . . . ???? Tried it a couple of times using "root@xxx" and "sudo" could not get the lines added???
This can happen if the root file system is mounted as read-only. For example, it happens when the computer has been abruptly shutdown and the operating system was not able to recover file system errors during the next reboot. If the file system is mounted as read-only, neither the root user can write on it.

In these cases, Debian mounts the file root file system as read-only to protect it from further damages, letting the administrator to backup important files before trying a recovery attempt.

Perhaps, it's better to open a different thread on the specific subject ("How to recovery when the root file system is mounted as read-only").

---
[1] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases# ... positories
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Re: [SID - Unstable] Sid seems to have lost track of where it's at?

#17 Post by este.el.paz »

Aki wrote: 2023-02-18 18:24 Hello,
este.el.paz wrote: 2023-02-18 16:29 [..] Logged in via TTY and cat-ed the sourceslist . . . it showed a single line that was uncommented with "unstable" mentioned, so then I tried to nano it adding in your two lines, one for regular "deb.debian" and the other "debian-security" . . .
"unstable" is another name for "Sid", the unstable development release of Debian [1].
este.el.paz wrote: 2023-02-18 16:29 [..] when I tried to write it out it errored out, "this is read-only" . . . ???? Tried it a couple of times using "root@xxx" and "sudo" could not get the lines added???
This can happen if the root file system is mounted as read-only. For example, it happens when the computer has been abruptly shutdown and the operating system was not able to recover file system errors during the next reboot. If the file system is mounted as read-only, neither the root user can write on it.

In these cases, Debian mounts the file root file system as read-only to protect it from further damages, letting the administrator to backup important files before trying a recovery attempt.

Perhaps, it's better to open a different thread on the specific subject ("How to recovery when the root file system is mounted as read-only").

---
[1] https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases# ... positories
@Aki

Cool, on the "unstable" . . . I mentioned that to show that I was in fact logged into the Sid partition, because it was showing the repo as "unstable" . . . of which I only have one Sid install going.

So, as far as the "abruptly shut down" . . . that is kind of a Catch-22 in that the system wasn't booting to GUI, which earlier in the thread we were discussing the /etc/fstab settings as the possible issue, but I checked them yesterday and they are showing the right UUID, or rather the Sid UUID matches the grub controller UUID for the / partition. That lead me on to this idea you mentioned for my Bookworm install on my laptop to add in the "non-free-firmware" packages . . . by adjusting the sources.list, but that failed for the discombobulated Sid install on my desktop, etc.

I will check out the suggestions in the laptop coming up . . . when I get a minute, the "perfect storm" of linux breakages seems to have hit numerous installs, all at the same time.

New thread started named as per your offering.

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