[Solved, see reply #20] help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

[zahtar]

[Solved, see reply #20]

hello all, as stated in the topic, I did something really wrong with nepomuk. I uninstalled it. Did that to kill the popups that said after startup that nepomuk is disabled, not running etc.

Now I am not able to boot to my new 11.10 installation. recovery mode -> repair packages finds nothing, root with networking is what I have been trying but no luck.

sudo apt-get install nepomuk

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

do not work. I think networking is not available...

any ideas?

thnx in advance!

EDIT: what I did, and cause the problem, was removing the first nepomuk package that showed up in the muon software center. I also checked the second one to be removed, can't remember what happened there. I restarted and now got stuck...

Could someone write how these packages are named in case I can atp-get them? thnx in any case...

EDIT2:
connecting to command prompt with networking, and:

apt-get install --reinstall kdm

because I saw in the bootscreen that kdm fails doing its thing. It gives me:

connect: network is unreachable

Is this repairable? I've been reading on google that strigi and nepomuk have many dependencies in kubuntu so removing it must have messed with a lot of things. Can I tell it to upgrade from the cd?

or reinstall? i have a seperate home partition anyway, but I definitely want to avoid this...

EDIT3: I have to write this on a post-it:

The bootup hang up because it had a problem with the kdm or kde. ctrl-alt-F2 sends me to the tty login. there:

username/pass,

sudo apt-get install --reinstall kdm

i saw the lines rolling, noticed there compiz, unity, and some ubuntu packages.

Now it shows the kde splash screen for login, but logs in a gnome envoiroment! I am almost sure I typed K and not G in that line. pretty far on the keyboard too..

Is this normal? did I type a more general command than a kdm reinstall? can't figure this out...

[doctordruidphd]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

Two things to try:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall kubuntu-desktop

and

sudo dpkg-reconfigure kdm

This will bring up a screen that allows you to select kdm or gdm.

Finally, when the greeter screen comes up, in the Menu selections, choose "session type", then make sure you have selected kde. It isn't called kde, but plasma-workspace, or something like that, sorry I don't remember the exact name at the moment. It may be marked "default".

[zahtar]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

hello doctordruidphd, thnx for your reply

before reading your post, I entered a similar command,

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

because when entering

sudo dpkg-reconfigure kubuntu-desktop

it gave me "package not found" or something.

It did work and in the login screen I can now choose the "plasma workspace" session (I remember it like this too). Default sends me again to gnome desktop, so I choose the plasma and I am back to where I wanted

I don't remember if eventually I did enter a reconfigure command, but I think I didn't.

I entered

sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-desktop
sudo apt-get autoremove

but it says none removed none upgraded etc. How can I delete the unnecessary gnome packages?

thnx again

[doctordruidphd]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

There is this link:

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/purekde

However I would copy the command in question and look through it before running it.

Edit: I do not believe there is any automatic way of doing it. You could, I suppose, search for depends on ubuntu-desktop, but that will likely pull in some system packages that you need irrespective of the desktop you are using, so use caution here, too.

[zahtar]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

I copied-pasted the command to LO writer, and it turns out to be 2 pages of packages, probably everything included in gnome.

As you pointed out, I don't know which packages are needed for my system regardless of being gnome, or not. Therefore I consider it a good idea not to run it, but fix issues that come up in my kde. One is the following:

I got the popup that I had a number of updates to make, clicked on it, opened the muon interface but when I clicked upgrade all it denied going on. It gave a msg like "proper authorisation/identification not entered", and it is true that I was not asked for the password at all.

I ended up doing

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

which did work, but the fact that the muon window didn't ask me for a password and just denied, troubles me a little.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

My opinion (and we all know what opinions are like, and why...):

The people who design package managers like synaptic, aptitude and muon, in general do a good job of it. But they have certain ideas about how problems should be resolved, and those ideas don't always work out in practice. There will always be circumstances under which any dependency resolution algorithm will fail. Many people come to rely on using the command line -- commands like apt-get and dpkg -- to do most of their package management, because they tend to have fewer problems in difficult situations. Even then, apt-get breaks on occasion, but its damage is usually fixable, provided you don't tell it to do something destructive like removing your entire system (or let it do it when it threatens to).

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

will always give you a list of what it is going to remove, and you need to pay careful attention to that list before hitting the Y key.

The middle road in this, between always using the command line and always using a package manager like muon or synaptic, is to use each one for what it does best. Searching for packages is much more efficient if done with a gui package manager, while large upgrade/updates are almost always more successful if done with the command line.

As you have discovered.

Also, be aware of the differences between apt-get upgrade and apt-get dist-upgrade. The upgrade command will not replace older versions of programs with newer ones, nor will it remove things from your system. The dist-upgrade command will install newer versions, often at the expense of removing older programs. That is usually OK, but sometimes, if the repositories are not completely up to date. it can wind up removing things it shouldn't. Sometimes problems are just a matter of waiting a few hours for other packages to be uploaded to the repositories, so it never hurts to wait and try again later.

I usually use dist-upgrade, but pay careful attention to the warnings about what will be removed and installed. If things are being removed, that are not being replaced with newer versions, then it's a good idea to do the "upgrade" version, and try again later with dist-upgrade.

You used the "upgrade" command, so you might want to try again using apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade, but again, watch carefully what it wants to remove. There may in fact be old gnome stuff hanging around that it needs to clean up.

If in doubt, you can always post the output of sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, (hit the N key to stop it from running) and someone can advise on whether or not it's a good idea to let it run. My own horror story: In my old debian days, I took the advice of the people on the debian board, and ran dist-upgrade. It removed all the networking software, and I wound up having to reinstall from CD. So watch it, carefully, and always have a backup.

[zahtar]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

thank you very much for your thorough information It helps new guys get "less new"

I did enter the command, but nothing was found

apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade

Building dependency tree    
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

Is there another way to fix the associations? Would sudo dpkg-reconfigure kubuntu-desktop be able to cause any problems or just fix things?

thnx again

[doctordruidphd]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

apt-get upgrade
apt-get dist-upgrade

You did do these as sudo, right?

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

It probably would have given you an error message if you didn't.

If those two tell you your system is up to date, then it almost certainly is, though this won't necessarily tell you if it is missing packages.

You can always try to run muon through the command line:

kdesudo muon

I should be prompting you on its own for a password; if it isn't, then something is wrong. You might try:

sudo apt-get install --reinstall muon muon-installer muon-notifier muon-updater debconf-kde-helper

[dibl]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

apt-get upgrade

sudo apt-get update would work better

[doctordruidphd]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

Oops, didn't catch that, post corrected. Thanks.

[Penguinclaw]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

From what I understand from reading this post you have messed up KDE by removing nepomuk which I believe is a core app and thus cannot be removed without pulling loads of dependencies needed for KDE. As mentioned above you should always read through the list of dependencies to check that it's not going to hose your system; if you're not sure post on the forum.

My advice is to backup your data and reinstall from scratch. Use this as a learning curve you will now be in a better position in future to be wary of what you remove. Good luck

[doctordruidphd]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --reinstall kubuntu-desktop

should drag in all of the relevant dependencies.

Nonetheless, the point is well made: if you don't have a significant number of user-compiled programs, custom configurations, fonts, system data, etc installed, then installing from a kubuntu installation CD might be the most time-efficient way to go. On the other hand, if this is a system you have been using for a while, and have a lot of custom stuff there, it might not be practical to do that. That's a call that has to be made in each situation.

[Penguinclaw]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

Part of my own back-up procedure is to back up those configuration files, fonts, custom stuff, mozilla config, kde config as well. Most will be in your home directory. Open Dolphin and under the spanner tool at the top right of your screen click on show hidden files. This will show all those configuration files (which will start with a .""); don't forget any important downloads and you should be good to reinstall

This always seems to work for me but obviously think about your own set-up and what important for you. It's taken me many years to perfect my own back-up procedure but as I'm sure you know this is your Get out of Jail free card when those nasty things that will never happen to me occur

I hope I'm not stating the obvious

[zahtar]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

Guys thnx for your replies!

Things generally work, but I guess I'll be finding errors like this muon thing. Until now I've been using konsole to apply all updates:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

I am using a separate home partition, so backup is almost nothing to me. I didn't upgrade to 11.10, I did a clean install because I wanted to set the root partition to ext4. Was hoping to see a performance improvement but got nothing. The good thing is that when I set my /home to the previously used partition, everything worked during the first bootup. Wallpapers, applets, almost everything. Had to install wine, lmsensors and maybe 2-3 other things. So installing from scratch is something not hard for me, but I was planning to do it again for the LTS release and stick to those upgrades. Doesn't formatting a partition again and again harm the disk? Please correct me if I am wrong here.

Anyway, reading your opinions here, I decided to follow the advice of doctordruidphd as a first step, and
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install --reinstall kubuntu-desktop

and got:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree    
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/3,532 B of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 129633 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to replace kubuntu-desktop 1.239 (using .../kubuntu-desktop_1.239_amd64.deb) ...
Unpacking replacement kubuntu-desktop ...
Setting up kubuntu-desktop (1.239) ...

I'll give you updates about the how the whole thing works

thnx again!!

[Snowhog]

Re: help! did something very wrong with nepomuk...

Things generally work, but I guess I'll be finding errors like this muon thing. Until now I've been using konsole to apply all updates:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

You will find that running sudo apt-get dist-upgrade will serve you much better.