Adept/dpkg broken after, or during, install

[nuclearsoup]

Hi there,
installed kubuntu 8.10 on my IBM T40 today.

Towards the end of the process, right before the reboot, there was a message about dpkg having unexpectedly quit.

Ok , after the reboot I see there are 6 software updates, which I try to apply using the adept update notifier.

First off this tells me dpkg was interrupted, and I should run dpkg --configure -a as root, which I dutifully do, and then retry the update. The update then results in the following error:

Commit failed.
To continue, hit ok and we will try to recover. If you close the application now, we will not do anything and you may try to resolve the problem manually.
(If you suspect this is a bug in Adept, please also provide the following exception description in the report).

The error was:
APT Error. Context:
Running dpkg,
[ /usr/bin/dpkg, --status-fd, 3, --unpack, /var/cache/apt/archives/base-files_4.0.4ubuntu2.2_i386.deb ],
Sup-process returned error code 1,
Error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/base-files_4.0.4ubuntu2.2_i386.deb : failed in buffer_read(fd): files list for package `ubiquity-frontend-kde': Input/output error.

Also I seem unable to perform any software installs, via adept.

Any suggested courses of action, or anybody experienced same?

Best regards

Kevp

[dibl]

Re: Adept/dpkg broken after, or during, install

Error processing /var/cache/apt/archives/base-files_4.0.4ubuntu2.2_i386.deb : failed in buffer_read(fd): files list for package `ubiquity-frontend-kde': Input/output error.

Geeez, I don't like the looks of that -- Ubiquity is the program that runs the installation.

You can google the error and see if anything helpful turns up on it. But I'd be suspicious of the installation CD that you burned -- I think maybe an error crept in there, somehow, or happened during the process of installing. The quickest fix, timewise and at this stage of things, might be to go back to slowly burning (4X, DAO mode) a new installation CD, and just do it over.

[nuclearsoup]

Re: Adept/dpkg broken after, or during, install

I did verify the cd from the boot menu before install, would you advise downloading a new iso?

Thanks for your help

kevp

[dibl]

Re: Adept/dpkg broken after, or during, install

Unfortunately, you cannot rely on the "Check CD for Defects" (I hope they don't throw me off the Forum for speaking this sad little truth).

Yes, you need to verify your downloaded ISO file before you burn a CD, by checking the md5sum of it, against the md5sum for that ISO as listed on your download site. K3b is great at simply running the check and showing the md5sum before you burn. But if you're running Windows or something, you might have to Google for a free md5sum checker or something like that.

So, once you've seen the right md5sum on your downloaded ISO, then you can burn it to a CD, but make sure you set the speed to 4X, and select "DAO" mode if your software has that option.

Even doing these things perfectly, it is possible to produce a coaster -- I've tossed a couple of them in the past year. Maybe the blank media had a spot on it -- hard to say why it sometimes goes wrong. These Linux OS ISO images use the very highest possible compression (to pack on a maximum of software) and they seem to be "touchy" regarding the quality of the CD burn. I suspect some burners just don't do the job -- people end up burning the CD on another computer to get a good one.

HTH

[nuclearsoup]

Re: Adept/dpkg broken after, or during, install

Ok will give that a try later, must admit to having used a Mac to burn the cd.

Shame, as am using 8.10 to write this and it all seems nice and smooth, hopefully will be better when upgrades and installs are available, to me.