[solved] Successfully stuffed up a new install, now what?

[wedgetail]

I needed a bit of diversion from networking. Decided to install LiveCD pclos2010.07 on a Toshiba Tecra M5 laptop, wifi only connection, which has Win XP2 installed. Owner would appreciate it stayed there.

Carved out 20GB of disk space installed a swap file about 2GB and used the rest for install, without problem.

Started the upgrade of about 820MB so went out in the garden. When finished work came back in and found only a few files missing ( I think as last I walked past there was only about 50 out of 100 hundred to go).

A message about not all files could not be downloaded, almost standard here, that the server drops out on the last few packages now and then.  In this case it was the heanet server that dropped out/reset.   Well I was delighted, called for a bit of experimentation. I ignored the messages and kept going.

I know I should not do this but it was far too tempting  

I have a bit of a mess now, and thought I could get out of it easy enough with a bit of apt-get update / apt-get distro-update and perhaps rpm dbase rebuild (think I have heard about that or even tried that once before)

A bit of snag, heanet no longer available a message keep saying.  Errrrh I will listen to any suggestions (but not a reload at this time, too easy)  

What I have managed to fish out:

[root@localhost ~]# apt-get update
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010 release      Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/main pkglist     Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/main release     Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/updates pkglist     Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/updates release    Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/nonfree pkglist    Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/nonfree release    Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/kde4 pkglist     Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/kde4 release     Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/games pkglist    Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Err http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/games release    Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/release  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/pkglist.main  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/release.main  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/pkglist.updates  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/release.updates  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/pkglist.nonfree  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/release.nonfree  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/pkglist.kde4  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/release.kde4  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/pkglist.games  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Failed to fetch http://ftp.heanet.ie/pub/pclinuxos/apt/pclinuxos/2010/base/release.games  Could not resolve 'ftp.heanet.ie'
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
W: Release files for some repositories could not be retrieved or authenticated. Such repositories are being ignored.
W: You may want to run apt-get update to correct these problems
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.
[root@localhost ~]#

The system is partly runable but the screen size is really out of kilter, work best done in konsole.

[bicol_willem]

Don't know if it is too late seen the state of your install but try running Repository Speed Test and pick a "good" server there.

[genomega]

That's the linux way, break it, fix it and repeat, that's how we learn.
 

[muungwana]

That looks like a DNS issue, open pcc -> network and internet -> hosts definitions, click add and then add "ftp.heanet.ie" to host name field and "193.1.193.64" to ip address field.

you can also add the same info in "/etc/hosts" text file, other entries in there will show you the format

[wedgetail]

bicol_willem
Well I did think that a repo speed test perhaps would have been a good start, then I had the time so I set it going.  Also I ought to have looked a little bit harder at the error message instead of ...here we go again... not unusual for my connection for some reason cut out just before end of download.


genomega
Stuff it up, only 10-15 minutes to rebuild if that. Yes learning the hard way lasts longer in memory.

muungwana
You are on the track, keep in mind it worked a few minutes before.

Ok, I was not quite fair in my description.  Initially I forgot to mention that I have only Wifi access on this pc. (By choice). As kdlabs normally is a very fast access for me I have discovered I decided a little nano /etc/apt/sources.list exercise in order, changing the repo.

This failed similarly, by then I got suspcious and checked with a ping to my router, ping 192.168.1.1 when that did not answer I knew wifi was down. To bring it up I have success with iwconfig wlan0 essid xxxxx xxxx=AP name.

Turned out heanet then was fine to connect, also that I did have problems.

Code: [Select]

[root@localhost ~]# apt-get update
Get:1 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010 release [2374B]
Fetched 2374B in 0s (2993B/s)
Get:1 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/main pkglist [2387kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/main release [160B]                                                
Get:3 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/updates pkglist [912kB]                                            
Get:4 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/updates release [163B]                                              
Get:5 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/nonfree pkglist [60.7kB]                                            
Get:6 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/nonfree release [161B]                                              
Get:7 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/kde4 pkglist [187kB]                                                
Get:8 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/kde4 release [158B]                                                
Get:9 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/games pkglist [21.8kB]                                              
Get:10 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/games release [157B]                                              
Fetched 3569kB in 27s (128kB/s)                                                                              
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Del libgdk pixbuf2.0 [630kB]
[root@localhost ~]#


Code: [Select]

[root@localhost ~]# apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
Calculating Upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded
  GConf2 dbus dbus-x11 hplip-hpijs-ppds libdbus-1_3
5 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 removed and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 11.0MB/11.3MB of archives.
After unpacking 414kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y
Get:1 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/updates libdbus-1_3 1.4.0-1pclos2010 [127kB]
Get:2 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/updates GConf2 2.32.0-1pclos2010 [1868kB]
Get:3 http://ftp.heanet.ie pclinuxos/2010/updates hplip-hpijs-ppds 3.10.6-1pclos2010 [9031kB]                
Fetched 1645kB in 15s (105kB/s)                                                                              
Committing changes...
Preparing                                ############################## [100%]
Updating / installing
  hplip-hpijs-ppds-3.10.6-1pclos2010.i58 ############################## [100%]
Cleaning up / removing
  hplip-hpijs-ppds-3.10.2-1pclos2010.i58 ############################## [100%]
Updating / installing
  libdbus-1_3-1.4.0-1pclos2010.i586      ############################## [100%]
Cleaning up / removing
  libdbus-1_3-1.2.24-1pclos2010.i586     ############################## [100%]
Updating / installing
  dbus-1.4.0-1pclos2010.i586             ############################## [100%]
  dbus-x11-1.4.0-1pclos2010.i586         ############################## [100%]
  GConf2-2.32.0-1pclos2010.i586          ############################## [100%]
Cleaning up / removing
  dbus-1.2.24-1pclos2010.i586            ############################## [100%]
  dbus-x11-1.2.24-1pclos2010.i586        ############################## [100%]
  GConf2-2.28.0-2pclos2010.i586          ############################## [100%]
Done.
[root@localhost ~]#


In the mean time a bit of SEARCH on apt-get update and old-polack turned out to be fruitull with a mention a couple of times as possible cure of:

[root@localhost ~]# apt-get
[root@localhost ~]# apt-get dist-upgrade

In case of failure perhaps a rpm database rebuild.  Since there was probably only a few files missing I figured the chances were good as I had not tinkered too much before applying these two lines in the given order.

System runs quite nicely now and fully updated.