I was running updates with swaret and now my system is not bootable. I was running slackware 10.0. I've decided I'll go ahead and just reinstall with 10.2, but there are some things I need first. I tried botting with Knoppix 3.9, and my network card is not detected. Is there a way to quickly get it configured to connect to my win xp machine and copy over some data?

My other option I tried was using a USB key, which gets detected fine by knoppix, but says it is read only. I tried changing permissions but that didn't help because it says it is a read only filesystem. How do I fix that?

I also have a mysql database I'd love to keep, is there a way to recover that data?

My final question would be, is there a way to recover without reinstalling? When booting there is a message about missing libraries or something that can't be found. I don't know of any rollback feature to get this fixed and don't want this problem to occur again.

Any help would be appreciated.

can't you just boot from Slack-cd 1 and follow onscreen instructions to boot your system ?
that would be the easy way.

incase you get errors when doing that, just boot from cd to the command prompt,
( don't issue " mount root=...etc " )
and mount the partition where you sys is on.
then you can do some repair.

egag

I get the error

then I get the boot prompt

(none) login:

and...?


how did you boot ?
can you login ?
can you do a " telinit 1 " and install " libtermcap-1.2.3-i486-6 " from cd 1 ?

egag

can't login, I get the message

unable to change tty /dev/tty1 Read only filesystem
Linux 2.6.10
You have new mail

-bash: error while loading shared libraries /same crap here file too short

then goes back to login prompt.

then boot from cd without the " mount root=...etc " stuff
and login.
after that make a mountpoint ( say /mount ) with : mkdir /mount

mount your sys-partition on there, and install the package
from cd with
" installpkg -root /mount libtermcap-1.2.3-i486-6.tgz ".

then test with " chroot /mount " .
if you get " missing files " then look in the /mount/lib dir for missing symlink :

/lib/libtermcap.so.2 -> libtermcap.so.2.0.8

if it's not there, make it with " ln -s ......."

egag

I will try that later, but in the meantime, do you or anyone have an answer to my question regarding the network card and/or usb drive?

Ok, whenI mount the sys-partition, do I need to specify a type, or just

mount /dev/hda1 /mount

also, where is the package on the cd, do I need to mount the cd? It tells me /dev/cdrom doesn't exist.

mount it with " mount -t <filesystem> /dev/hdxx /mount "

for the cd goes the same :
make a mountpoint like /cd
use "mount -t iso9660 /dev/hdc /cd

( here i think your cd drive is on hdc )

you can use the aaa_elflibs-10.2.0-i486-3 from the /a dir. or better
libtermcap-1.2.3-i486-6. ( you gotto look for that one )

egag

Thanks for the help, got it fixed by reinstalling teh package.

ok !
...but before you ever use swaret again , make sure to configure it correct.
( i wouldn't know how, as i don't use it ).

egag

Do you use something else, or just upgrade certain packages manually?

i don't use programs that must be run as root and install files on my system from the www.
( you just had some fun with that... )

you can subscribe to the slackware security mailing list here :

http://www.slackware.com/lists/

and upgrade a package when suggested by PV.
( ...with " upgradepkg <packagename> " )

when a new version of Slack is out i get the iso's and follow the
instructions in the " UPGRADE.TXT " on iso1.

no use for swaret and friends.

egag