security/automatic updates

shafty023 · 02-12-2008, 11:50 AM

if you want to get X windows running right away then log in at a terminal prompt and type "sudo vi /etc/X11/xorg.conf" and find the section that looks like this

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "xxxx"
EndSection

Change the driver to "vesa" . That should at least get X windows running in limited mode. Please post here what driver it is set to right now.

***EDIT***
By the way, when you're done save the file by typing :wq and hit enter (I hope you know how to use vi). Then make sure you are your user and not root and type "startx" without the quotes

lazlow · 02-12-2008, 11:52 AM

It could be that you still have some of the development stuff causing problems. Post your /etc/X11/xorg.conf so we can see if it is something obvious. Also when you you post an error do not use blah-blah, that stuff is important to figuring out what is wrong.

maxreason · 02-12-2008, 04:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazlow

It could be that you still have some of the development stuff causing problems. Post your /etc/X11/xorg.conf so we can see if it is something obvious. Also when you you post an error do not use blah-blah, that stuff is important to figuring out what is wrong.

First, though obviously I could rarely be wrong, I only type "blah blah blah" for things that are obviously irrelevant (about something [seemingly] not related to the problem).

For example, in this case the messages stated pretty clearly what the problem is, but I'm much too novice with linux/kernels/drivers/yum/rpms to solve the problem.

Let me just say what the problem is here (as I understand it).

The nvidia driver 169.09 has been installed by one of the processes you guys led me through, presumably the following (from the yummy output above):

installing: kmod-nvidia-2.6.23.15-137.fc ############ [ 3/15]

Presumably the 169.07 driver was installed before the above happened.

But also from that output, we see that "grubby had a fatal error" while trying to figure out how to install some ?newer? kernel (that was at step [ 1/15] above).

Therefore, I have a newer driver (169.09) that is presumably part of the above mentioned kmod-nvidia-2.6.23.15-137.fc package...

... but ...

I have an older kernel that doesn't have support for that 169.09 nvidia driver. It will probably mean something to you that the output of "uname -a" is:

Linux fedora8x32 2.6.23.9-85.fc8 #1 SMP <date/time> i686 athlon i386 GNU/Linux

My guess is, this kernel is too old for the 169.09 nvidia driver. Right?

-----

So, my guess is, you guys can tell me how to install a "new enough" but "not too new" kernel that matches the 169.09 nvidia driver...

--- or ---

how to downgrade my 169.09 nvidia driver to 169.07 (?again?).

-----

Of course, I may be hopelessly naive here. For example, you may be shaking your heads and muttering, "yeah, great, but then what happens when he upgrades again"?

Okay, if I am nuts here, and you need all the useless (blah blah) information too, I shall comply. The only reason I put the "blah blah" in is --- because I type into this website on a windoze machine on my left-hand display, while the action is happening on my fedora8 linux machine on my right-hand display. And the keyboard and mouse get switch back and forth via a KVM - so there is no easy way to cut and paste huge long sections from the linux screen to the windoze side. That's why I type "blah blah blah" instead of taking half an hour of extra typing. Just so you understand why I resisted at all, in the first place.

Okay, what's next?

shafty023 · 02-13-2008, 10:29 AM

1) first uninstall the kmod-nvidia driver via "sudo yum remove kmod-nvidia" (I'm assuming you've already changed your driver in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to use "vesa".

2)Then do "sudo yum install kernel.i686" . It should install the latest kernel.

3) Then do "sudo yum install kmod-nvidia".

4) Hop back into /etc/X11/xorg.conf and change the video driver to "nvidia".

The video driver is changed where you find the section:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "i810"
EndSection

5) Then do a reboot and let us know what happens

maxreason · 02-13-2008, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shafty023

1) first uninstall the kmod-nvidia driver via "sudo yum remove kmod-nvidia" (I'm assuming you've already changed your driver in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to use "vesa".

2)Then do "sudo yum install kernel.i686" . It should install the latest kernel.

3) Then do "sudo yum install kmod-nvidia".

4) Hop back into /etc/X11/xorg.conf and change the video driver to "nvidia".

The video driver is changed where you find the section:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Videocard0"
Driver "i810"
EndSection

5) Then do a reboot and let us know what happens

-----

I let it continue even though it looked "backwards" to me. What do I mean?

When I did step 2, it said:
---> kernel - 2.6.23.15-137.fc8.i686 is already installed

then in its "resolving dependencies" section:
--> running transaction check
---> kernel.i686 0:2.6.23.1-42.fc8 set to be installed
--> finished dependency resolution
--> running transaction check
---> kernel.i686 0:2.6.23.15-137.fc8 set to be erased
---> kernel.i686 0:2.6.23.1-42.fc8 set to be installed
--> finished dependency resolution
dependencies resolved

then in a transaction section, it sez:
---> installing kernel i686 2.6.23.1-42.fc8 fedora 16M
---> removing kernel i686 2.6.23.15-137.fc8 installed 45M

then in downloading packages
--> (1/1) kernel-2.6.23.1-42 100% 16MB 01:58

--> running rpm_check_debug
--> running transaction test
--> finished transaction test

--> transaction check error:
"package kernel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8.i686 (which is newer than kernel-2.6.23.1-42.fc8.i686) is already installed
"package kernel-2.6.23.15-137.fc8.i686 (which is newer than kernel-2.6.23.1-42.fc8.i686) is already installed

--> error summary

Nothing under error summary, just the command prompt. Not sure whether this actually is removing newer kernels and installing old ones --- or is refusing to do so.

After a shutdown and reboot, I notice the following:

fedora8 booted up kernel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8.i686 even though something above says "kernel-2.6.23.15-137.fc8.i686 is already installed". Not sure whether this is appropriate or not.

The video is very, very slow. I can actually see it clear the screen in sections! And when it switches to the <skyrocket-silent> screensaver, it paints a new image about every 5 seconds. Definitely not hardware speedup.

Something (?reboot?) changed the driver in the /etc/X11/xorg.conf from "nvidia" to "nv". Not sure whether that is a problem either.

Now what? I suspect I need to do either of 2 things. (1) Make my system boot the newer kernel, or (2) make the nvidia driver match the kernel that boots up.

What now?

shafty023 · 02-13-2008, 10:43 PM

if you do "rpm -q --all | grep kernel" you'll see all the kernels you have installed right now. Never uninstall the kernel you are running right now or you'll be in a mess of trouble. You can find out which one you're running right now by typing "uname -r" . It's very strange that you are unable to install the latest kernel. But my suggestion would be to boot into kernel 2.6.23.15 . You can do this by "sudo vi /boot/grub/grub.conf" and changing the value for "default=" to the section for that kernel. The values start at 0, so the first section/kernel is 0, while the next is 1,2,etc. Save the file and reboot and you'll be in that kernel. Or at the splash screen on boot just hit an arrow key and select it. Then install the kmod-nvidia module via yum.

maxreason · 02-14-2008, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shafty023

if you do "rpm -q --all | grep kernel" you'll see all the kernels you have installed right now. Never uninstall the kernel you are running right now or you'll be in a mess of trouble. You can find out which one you're running right now by typing "uname -r" . It's very strange that you are unable to install the latest kernel. But my suggestion would be to boot into kernel 2.6.23.15 . You can do this by "sudo vi /boot/grub/grub.conf" and changing the value for "default=" to the section for that kernel. The values start at 0, so the first section/kernel is 0, while the next is 1,2,etc. Save the file and reboot and you'll be in that kernel. Or at the splash screen on boot just hit an arrow key and select it. Then install the kmod-nvidia module via yum.

Okay, here is what I see.

1: "uname -r" generates (as it always does):
---- 2.6.23.9-85.fc8

2: "cat /boot/grub/grub.conf" generates:
default=1
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.21-2952.fc8xen)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /xen.gz-2.6.21-2952.fc8
module /vmlinuz-2.6.21-2952.fc8xen ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
module /initrd-2.6.21-2952.fc8xen.img
title Fedora (2.6.23.9-85.fc8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.23.9-85.fc8.img

3: "rpm -q --all | grep kernel" generates a huge list of trash, so rather than read my linux screen and manually read and type everything into this computer (where I am working with you), I better ftp upload it and ftp download it from somewhere to get you the exact copy (no blah blah blah this time). Here it is:

kernel-PAE-debug-2.6.23.14-107.fc8
kernel-debug-2.6.23.14-107.fc8
kernel-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8
kernel-devel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8
kernel-PAE-debug-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8
kernel-PAE-2.6.23.9-85.fc8
kernel-headers-2.6.23.14-107.fc8
kernel-debug-2.6.23.9-85.fc8
kernel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8
kernel-PAE-debug-devel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8
kernel-xen-devel-2.6.21-2952.fc8
kernel-PAE-2.6.23.14-107.fc8
kernel-PAE-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8
kernel-debug-devel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8
kernel-2.6.23.15-137.fc8
kernel-debug-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8
kernel-xen-2.6-doc-2.6.21-2952.fc8
kernel-xen-2.6.21-2952.fc8
kernel-PAE-devel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8
kernel-PAE-debug-2.6.23.9-85.fc8
kernel-doc-2.6.23.14-107.fc8

I notice two surprises:

1: grub.conf does not contain the newer kernels

2: rpm finds a huge pile of wacko kernels (development, debug, xen, PAE). I'm not even sure what "xen" and "PAE" signify.

Okay, we should be close now, right? :-)

----- later: a little extra tidbit, in case it matters (the rpm command on "nvidia"):

xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-169.09-4.lvn8
xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-libs-169.09-4.lvn8
kmod-nvidia-169.09-7.lvn8
kmod-nvidia-2.6.23.15-137.fc8-169.09-7.lvn8

shafty023 · 02-14-2008, 09:42 AM

Wow you have a lot of crap installed that you don't need.
Okay lets take this one slowly as there's no telling what dependencies you'll be required to remove when I have you run this command.
Run the following command but do not type 'y' to actually remove. When it prompts if you'd like to remove, cancel or type 'n'.

yum erase kernel-debug-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-headers-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-PAE-debug-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-PAE-debug-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-PAE-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-PAE-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-debug-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-doc-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-xen-devel-2.6.21-2952.fc8 kernel-xen-2.6-doc-2.6.21-2952.fc8 kernel-xen-2.6.21-2952.fc8 kernel-PAE-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 kernel-PAE-debug-devel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 kernel-PAE-debug-devel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 kernel-PAE-devel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 kernel-PAE-debug-2.6.23.9-85.fc8

Now I doubt doing a copy/paste of that is going to work b/c it won't keep everything on the same line. You need to make sure it's all one continuous line. Now post here the finalized summary of everything that would be uninstalled and I'll review it. Once we figure out these kernels we can fix grub.conf and move onto nvidia

maxreason · 02-14-2008, 03:36 PM

Is this the output you wanted to see? If not, I'll try again...

Code:

===============================================================================
 Package                 Arch       Version             Repository        Size 
===============================================================================
Removing:
 kernel-PAE              i686       2.6.23.14-107.fc8   installed          45 M
 kernel-PAE              i686       2.6.23.9-85.fc8     installed          45 M
 kernel-PAE-debug        i686       2.6.23.9-85.fc8     installed          46 M
 kernel-PAE-debug        i686       2.6.23.14-107.fc8   installed          46 M
 kernel-PAE-debug-devel  i686       2.6.23.9-85.fc8     installed          15 M
 kernel-PAE-debug-devel  i686       2.6.23.14-107.fc8   installed          15 M
 kernel-PAE-devel        i686       2.6.23.9-85.fc8     installed          15 M
 kernel-PAE-devel        i686       2.6.23.14-107.fc8   installed          15 M
 kernel-debug            i686       2.6.23.14-107.fc8   installed          46 M
 kernel-debug-devel      i686       2.6.23.14-107.fc8   installed          15 M
 kernel-devel            i686       2.6.23.14-107.fc8   installed          31 M
 kernel-doc              noarch     2.6.23.14-107.fc8   installed         8.5 M
 kernel-headers          i386       2.6.23.14-107.fc8   installed         1.9 M
 kernel-xen              i686       2.6.21-2952.fc8     installed          46 M
 kernel-xen-2.6-doc      noarch     2.6.21-2952.fc8     installed         8.0 M
 kernel-xen-devel        i686       2.6.21-2952.fc8     installed          15 M
Removing for dependencies:
 blacs                   i386       1.1-25.fc8.1        installed         2.0 M
 blacs-devel             i386       1.1-25.fc8.1        installed         601 k
 compat-gcc-34           i386       3.4.6-8             installed          12 M
 compat-gcc-34-c++       i386       3.4.6-8             installed          49 M
 compat-gcc-34-g77       i386       3.4.6-8             installed         4.6 M
 eclipse-cdt             i386       1:4.0.1-1.fc8       installed          57 M
 eclipse-rpm-editor      i386       0.1.0-10.fc8        installed         724 k
 fedora-packager         noarch     0.1.1-1.fc8         installed          23 k
 freehdl                 i386       0.0.4-4.fc8         installed         4.5 M
 gcc                     i386       4.1.2-33            installed         9.6 M
 gcc-c++                 i386       4.1.2-33            installed         6.4 M
 gcc-gfortran            i386       4.1.2-33            installed         6.6 M
 gcc-java                i386       4.1.2-33            installed         5.3 M
 ghdl                    i386       0.25-0.89svn.6.fc8  installed         6.5 M
 glibc-devel             i386       2.7-2               installed         4.9 M
 glibc-headers           i386       2.7-2               installed         2.0 M
 gnome-applet-vm         i386       0.1.2-2.fc7         installed         114 k
 java-1.5.0-gcj-devel    i386       1.5.0.0-17.fc8      installed          58 k
 lam                     i386       2:7.1.2-10.fc7      installed         2.8 M
 ocaml                   i386       3.10.0-7.fc8        installed          17 M
 orpie                   i386       1.4.3-5.fc6         installed         1.6 M
 qucs                    i386       0.0.13-1.fc8        installed          12 M
 rpmdevtools             noarch     6.4-1.fc8           installed         112 k
 scalapack               i386       1.7.5-1.fc8.1       installed          42 M
 scalapack-devel         i386       1.7.5-1.fc8.1       installed         6.8 M
 systemtap               i386       0.5.14-1.fc8        installed         1.8 M
 xen                     i386       3.1.2-1.fc8         installed         5.1 M
Transaction Summary
=============================================================================
Install      0 Package(s)         
Update       0 Package(s)         
Remove      43 Package(s)

maxreason · 02-17-2008, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shafty023

Wow you have a lot of crap installed that you don't need. Okay lets take this one slowly as there's no telling what dependencies you'll be required to remove when I have you run this command.
Run the following command but do not type 'y' to actually remove. When it prompts if you'd like to remove, cancel or type 'n'.

yum erase kernel-debug-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-headers-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-PAE-debug-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-PAE-debug-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-PAE-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-PAE-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-debug-devel-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-doc-2.6.23.14-107.fc8 kernel-xen-devel-2.6.21-2952.fc8 kernel-xen-2.6-doc-2.6.21-2952.fc8 kernel-xen-2.6.21-2952.fc8 kernel-PAE-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 kernel-PAE-debug-devel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 kernel-PAE-debug-devel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 kernel-PAE-devel-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 kernel-PAE-debug-2.6.23.9-85.fc8

Now I doubt doing a copy/paste of that is going to work b/c it won't keep everything on the same line. You need to make sure it's all one continuous line. Now post here the finalized summary of everything that would be uninstalled and I'll review it. Once we figure out these kernels we can fix grub.conf and move onto nvidia

I posted my reply about 3 days ago, and have been waiting for a reply. :-o

I just realized --- you probably don't know I reply unless I reply via the "reply" button on the web-page (it probably sends you an email). Dooooh - how stupido of me! Well then, just above is my reply. Very much hoping to get my Linux system working properly again. I have pretty much fixed up all the code in my 3D engine to execute on both Linux and Windoze now, but with the nvidia driver version problem my [formerly working] glX code does not compile correctly in eclipse any more. Bummer! I can't wait to get this running on Linux.

Hope to hear from you guys soon, so we can eliminate the spam from this system! Thanks for your help.

shafty023 · 02-18-2008, 08:55 AM

Sorry actually I've been moving into a new house this weekend so I didn't have internet connection. Just got back online.

Looking over your output we can safely remove those packages. You will immediately after the reboot want to reinstall gcc and some other packages.
So your steps:
1) Remove those packages
2) Then we want to boot into the newest kernel you already have installed 2.6.23.15-137.fc8
But I need to see your grub.conf again to make sure yum cleaned it up after doing those kernel removes in the last step.
Sooooo, post here the contents of grub.conf again ( `sudo cat /boot/grub/grub.conf` )

maxreason · 02-18-2008, 04:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shafty023

Looking over your output we can safely remove those packages. You will immediately after the reboot want to reinstall gcc and some other packages. So your steps:
1) Remove those packages
2) Then we want to boot into the newest kernel you already have installed 2.6.23.15-137.fc8
But I need to see your grub.conf again to make sure yum cleaned it up after doing those kernel removes in the last step. Sooooo, post here the contents of grub.conf again (`sudo cat /boot/grub/grub.conf`)

Okay, the contents of grub.conf are:

Code:

default=0
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.23.9-85.fc8)
   root (hd0,0)
   kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.9-85.fc8 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
   initrd /initrd-2.6.23.9-85.fc8.img

The above is typed-in from reading the other screen, so it might contain a typo. I didn't reboot yet, but I assume that doesn't matter. I'll reboot now. What next?

shafty023 · 02-19-2008, 09:37 AM

Ok we need to make changes to grub.conf and set it to boot into the newest kernel.
Do "sudo vi /boot/grub/grub.conf" without quotes and add this at the bottom of that file:

title Fedora (2.6.23.15-137.fc8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.15-137.fc8 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.23.15-137.fc8.img

and change "default=0" to "default=1" without the quotes. Then you can reboot. If you've already rebooted you didn't hurt anything. You just rebooted back into the old kernel. Now you're in the newest kernel you have installed which is not the newest kernel available. Now you should be able to do "sudo yum install kernel". Run that command and copy/paste the summary output here. Or if you see that it is going to be installing a newer kernel than 2.6.23.15-137 then go ahead and do it. Before you reboot make sure grub.conf shows it will be booting into a kernel and that it is the latest kernel you just installed. If you're unsure feel free to post the output here before rebooting. Do not let it uninstall the kernel you are currently running which should be 2.6.23.15-137 (remember `uname -r`)

maxreason · 02-19-2008, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shafty023

Ok we need to make changes to grub.conf and set it to boot into the newest kernel. Do "sudo vi /boot/grub/grub.conf" without quotes and add this at the bottom of that file:

title Fedora (2.6.23.15-137.fc8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.23.15-137.fc8 ro root=LABEL=/ rhgb quiet
initrd /initrd-2.6.23.15-137.fc8.img

and change "default=0" to "default=1" without the quotes. Then you can reboot. If you've already rebooted you didn't hurt anything. You just rebooted back into the old kernel. Now you're in the newest kernel you have installed which is not the newest kernel available. Now you should be able to do "sudo yum install kernel". Run that command and copy/paste the summary output here. Or if you see that it is going to be installing a newer kernel than 2.6.23.15-137 then go ahead and do it. Before you reboot make sure grub.conf shows it will be booting into a kernel and that it is the latest kernel you just installed. If you're unsure feel free to post the output here before rebooting. Do not let it uninstall the kernel you are currently running which should be 2.6.23.15-137 (remember `uname -r`)

Okay, I followed the instructions, rebooted, and now "uname -r" displays the newer kernel (2.6.23.15-137.fc8). I infer this kernel matches the installed nvidia driver, because the graphics is faster now. However...

I find that my OpenGL test program doesn't compile in the eclipse IDE, apparently because the nvidia versions of the OpenGL include files were removed from the "/usr/include" directory. I looked at the beginning of a couple of these files and they were not nvidia files. And the "/usr/include/nvidia" folder completely vanished sometime during the various fooling around.

Also, the automatic "package updater" tries to update 137 packages, but it had three "missing dependency" errors:

missing dependency: games-menus is needed by package kmenu-gnome
missing dependency: device-mapper-devel >= 1.02.02-3 is needed by package e2fsprogs.devel
missing dependency: python-genshi >= 0.4.4 is needed by package TurboGears

We are getting closer, hopefully not on the zeno schedule. I am afraid to try to install livna again, for fear I will get the nvidia driver and kernel outta sync again. Perish that thought! What next?

shafty023 · 02-19-2008, 12:58 PM

1) sudo yum install games-menu device-mapper-devel python-genshi
2) sudo yum update

Step 2 is in place of letting the automatic package updater find the updates. This will do the updates for you. See if that passes the dependency checks. Also take note of what kernel it is going to be installing. If nothing then I guess you have the latest kernel. Let me know how this goes