Help?

I am hoping that someone can help me get my system ( laptop ) back into a proper state.

A while back, I installed 8.2 into my laptop, because I, like many others, had issues with the various dynamic ways of loading 8.5 ( USB, pseudo-ISO, etc. ), but I was able to find a commercial CD of 8.2. ( Linux Format, as it happens ) ( for some reason, my laptop will not successfully read any CD that I burn on any of the machines that I have here )

In any case, back to the story.

I have been running 8.2 for at least a couple of months, I don't remember precisely, and doing updates during that time. Apt seems to have issues with some of the repositories ( mirrorservice, among others ) and the system seems to be becoming more and more Debian.

Finally, now, it appears almost pure Debian, with the screen layout suddenly changing so that the menu bar went to the top ( traditional Gnome ) and various other visible changes, as well as program changes.

The question is: Are there some key packages that I can install / upgrade to turn this system back into an antiX system, and, in particular, an 8.5 system?

Other than completely re-installing 8.2 from scratch, or somehow finding a commercial 8.5 disk, does anybody have any suggestions for restoring my system?


Thanks,
Brian

bdmc...most of what you wrote I can't help with, but I do have a thought about your cd burning. I have a old sony vaio that will only read CD-R's burned at low speed, and only certain brands. I have the most luck with Memorex branded CD's. The"house" brands at some stores, and imation disks, cannot be read by my hardware. I even have trouble with Verbatim. Just a thought for you.

Sounds as if you may be answering prompts in synaptic with a yes instead of the default N,
Please post the output of the following in terminal as user
cheers,
ohh

(ohh) Actually, except for slim, I think there's nothing else that should be answered 'no'. Or am I missing something?
It's not a sane procedure to answer 'no' unless you know exactly why you're doing so.

Sorry for not entering into the proper subject of the post.

secipolla,

Well to each his own, but since the default is N, unless I know for sure that it should be yes, I always use the default N,

for example, if as a newbie you get the following output during a

apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade
and you answer Y to accept the maintainers version, you will overwrite your dhclient.conf and may not have a working network following your approach.
For a newbie this can cause a myriad of problems. So unless your certain that Y is the right action, the only sane action for me is to default to N, since I am no expert, but YMMV.

If you use smxi, you get warnings about which to answer Y or N.

cheers,
ohh

oldhoghead wrote:Sounds as if you may be answering prompts in synaptic with a yes instead of the default N,
Please post the output of the following in terminal as user

Code: Select all

inxi -F

cheers,
ohh

That's fascinating. I have never seen the"inxi" command before.

Unfortunately, that machine can't talk to the Internet just now ( at $clientwork ), so I can't show you exactly what I am seeing, but I know it isn't what you were looking for.

I think that I am just seeing the labels for the information you were looking for, not the data itself.

For instance, I see:

System: Host Kernel Distro

CPU: single core cache flags bmips clocked at
Graphics: Card X.org Res:


etc.

OHH, as far as answering"N", I tend to do that, too, although I do look at what file is being changed, and, if it is a file that I haven't changed, I will do a Diff, see if there is anything critical being overwritten, and then say"Y".

No, I don't use Synaptic, I use Aptitude in command-line mode, but I suspect that you may be correct about how I got here -- I took a look at dselect to see what was available, not just the things that I had already installed -- I think it did more than I wanted.

No argument about that -- any suggestions for getting back to"normal?"

B

bmdc,

Good to know that your aware of the process, be it apt or aptitude, I know that it is better to use one or the other exclusively. As far as getting back, you will probably get back much easier with a reinstall, unless of course you have incremental backups __{{emoticon}}__ I know pita, but you could spend many an hour trying to figure out what went south on you and still end up in the same shape, unless that is you enjoy a good puzzle. Since I don't use aptitude, I don't know the process for looking at the history, but that's where you'd need to look, for example if you knew the install was ok on the 1st and then on the 3rd you did a bunch of upgrades and then a few days later noticed some anomalies, my instinct would be to look at what came in on the 3rd, etc. Sorry can't be of much help. Maybe someone will chime in who has more expertise in this area.

cheers,
ohh

ohh:

Well, dug out the DVD from Linux Format from August 2009, and reinstalled 8.2, followed by the massive update, which may still be running, for all I know!

Back to the original issue:
The problems seemed to be cumulative; certainly there was a massive failure just at the end when it became"all Debian," but things had been changing gradually in other ways, seeming to be drifting away from antiX and toward Debian.

Thanks,
Brian