Albert's questions

I want to install some package (apt-get install XXX) but I don't want that it will be added to the list of manually installed packages (apt-mark showmanual). How?

In Gentoo, the corresponding flag for emerge is --oneshot, which says to not add it to the world file (which corresponds to the list of manually installed packages).

One use case is that I want to write some scripts which would automatically install or reinstall some packages via apt-get install in order to fix up some messed up system, but I do not want to mark those packages as manually installed.

I imagine there are other use cases as well. As emerge also has such flag, I wondered if there is a similar flag for apt-get install.

Maybe the answer is simply no, and I have to manually mark it as auto (apt-mark auto XXX) afterwards.

apt-mark showmanual lists a lot of packages for me:

root@hcompneu:~# apt-mark showmanual | wc -l
4013
root@hcompneu:~# apt-mark showmanual | head
a11y-profile-manager-indicator
abiword
abiword-common
abiword-plugin-grammar
account-plugin-facebook
account-plugin-flickr
account-plugin-google
account-plugin-identica
account-plugin-twitter
accountsservice
root@hcompneu:~# apt-mark showmanual | tail
yelp-xsl
zeitgeist
zeitgeist-core
zeitgeist-datahub
zenity
zenity-common
zip
zlib1g
zlib1g-dev
zlib1g:i386

As I understand, it should only list those packages which I manually installed. I don't remember in each case anymore but I'm pretty sure I did not install all of those manually. Actually, I rarely installed any software on this system, despite Chrome, OpenOffice and some other very basic things. So I would expect a list of maybe 10-100 packages but not more. Maybe it also includes ubuntu-desktop, grub and linux or so from the base Ubuntu installation.

Maybe in the past though I wrote some scripts to fix up a broken system by automatically calling apt-get install XXX on various packages. Or maybe I did other things. I don't really remember anymore.

Could that be the case here? So I somehow messed it up? If that is the case, what would you suggest? Mark all to automatically installed, and then by hand add some selected packages like ubuntu-desktop?

Or is such output correct and I understand it wrongly? I read this and I'm not sure. It looks like it is much more complicated to get the list of manually installed packages? Or why is the answer so complicated?

Or is apt-mark showmanual buggy?

root@hcompneu:~# ls -ld /var/log/installer/
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dez 27 11:27 /var/log/installer/
root@hcompneu:~# grep -r cdrom /etc/apt/ --include=*.list
root@hcompneu:~# dpkg -l | grep ^ii | wc -l
3812

$ sudo apt install cuda
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 cuda : Depends: cuda-11-4 (>= 11.4.2) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

What does "it is not going to be installed" mean? Why? Why is it not installing the dependencies? How can I find out?

What does "you have held broken packages" mean? Which broken packages? How can I find out?

What does "impossible situation" mean? How can I get some more details about it?

Related is this earlier similar message, which is also still unanswered. But here, it also prints "you have held broken packages", and this "impossible situation", so maybe it is slightly different.

I'm not specifically asking about this specific cuda package here. I'm also not asking about how to solve or fix anything here. I'm asking just about how to debug and understand and handle such apt (or apt-get) messages in general, for any package.

I get this message:

$ sudo apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.

How do I find out which packages are not upgraded, and why?

On many similar outputs like this, it additionally prints sth like The following packages have been kept back:, but not in my case here.

Additionally:

$ sudo apt list --upgradable
Listing... Done

Additionally:

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade --dry-run
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.

and:

sudo apt-get full-upgrade --dry-run
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.

apt-cache policy log here.

Audio device got stuck!

This is the error message I get from Mplayer. But the problem is the same with all applications, when playing sound (which all use PulseAudio by default). I.e. I hear extreme stuttering, and it is mostly hanging. This also causes any videos to hang, e.g. YouTube video (thus my post here).

This seems to be PulseAudio related. Because when I play via ALSA, it works fine. (I.e. disable the device in the PulseAudio controller, then use mplayer -ao alsa:device=hw=1.0 ....)

Also, the problem was not always there, but only occurred since some recent update.

Ubuntu 20.04.

Relevant audio devices (via lspci -nn):

09:00.1 Audio device [0403]: NVIDIA Corporation TU106 High Definition Audio Controller [10de:10f9] (rev a1)
0b:00.4 Audio device [0403]: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD] Starship/Matisse HD Audio Controller [1022:1487]

The second device is the device I want to use.

head -n1 /proc/asound/card1/codec\#0:

Codec: Realtek ALCS1200A

Earlier I created a new partition with FSTYPE zfs_member, and (I think) I set the GPT partition label to the new name of the ZFS pool, and then created the ZFS pool in this partition (zpool create ... /dev/disk/by-partuuid/...). That looks like:

$ lsblk --output NAME,FSTYPE,MODEL,LABEL,PTTYPE,SIZE -e 7
NAME        FSTYPE     MODEL                        LABEL       PTTYPE   SIZE
sda                    Samsung_SSD_860_QVO_1TB                  gpt    931,5G
└─sda1      zfs_member                              my-zfs-pool gpt    931,5G

I read in a couple of places that using a GPT partition for ZFS should be fine. In the old Sun ZFS documentation, there was a recommendation at some point to use the whole disk, but this seems to be long outdated, and esp not relevant for ZFS-on-Linux. (Some discussion about this topic: e.g. here)

Now I read that ZFS-on-Linux anyway would automatically partition the disk with GPT, if you pass a whole disk to zpool create. (Here is an issue for an option to actually disable that auto-partition behavior.)

Note that in any case, I want to have some GPT partitioning. Because e.g. maybe I want to shrink the partition later and put other partitions on it. Or whatever. I don't think there is any good reason not to have a GPT partition table on the disk.

So I thought that the auto partitioning might be better. Maybe ZFS partitions it slightly different, for whatever clever reason, and that is maybe better. So I did that on another new disk (zpool create ... /dev/disk/by-id/...(whole-disk)).

However, that looks like this now:

$ lsblk --output NAME,FSTYPE,MODEL,LABEL,PTTYPE,SIZE -e 7
NAME        FSTYPE     MODEL                        LABEL       PTTYPE   SIZE
sdb                    WDC_WD60EZAZ-00ZGHB0                     gpt      5,5T
├─sdb1                                                          gpt      5,5T
└─sdb9                                                          gpt        8M

So, ZFS indeed created a GPT partition table as I wanted. However, it did not set the FSTYPE on the partitions, nor did it set a GPT partition label.

So, now to my actual questions:

Why did it not set the FSTYPE, nor the GPT partition label?

Is it safe to set the FSTYPE afterwards? E.g. to zfs_member?

Is it safe to set the GPT partition label afterwards? E.g. to the name of the zpool?

This is to my bluetooth headphone.

Then I click on "Connect", and after a few seconds, I get this message:

"Connection to the device failed"

The strange thing is, this has worked previously. There might have been updates in between but I'm not exactly sure.

Also, I was dual booting Windows before, and there Bluetooth with the same headphone works just fine. I recheck by booting in again to Windows, and it still works, but then booting back to Linux, and it does not work.

This sounds related, because some people also report dual boots with Windows. However, the suggestion with reloading btusb (or maybe also btintel) did not help.

I had some previous issues with wifi + dual booting with Windows before. I did sth and it solved it, but I forgot what I was. I remember that to permanently get rid of this, I was supposed to disable the Windows "Fast Boot" feature. But there was another workaround to make it working. Related questions here or here, but I had found some other question/website with more information, but I don't find it anymore.

Anyway, I disabled the "Fast Boot" feature in Windows, and the wifi is working all the time. I did not had any issues anymore.

Sometimes after a long usage (several days) of KDE Plasma, copy & paste suddenly stops working. (Specifically, paste command always pastes whatever I had last in the buffer, but I'm not able to copy anything new into the buffer.)

(At the same time, moving windows around also stopped working. Maybe related: here. Using kwin --replace fixes that, i.e. now I can again move windows around. However, copy & paste is still broken in the same way.)

Which service is responsible for the copy & paste handling? Is it possible to restart just that service, so that I don't need to restart the whole system and log out/in again?

(This is Ubuntu 16.04 with KDE 5.)

I found klipper now, and tried kstart klipper, but that does not help (after some iterations of kwin --replace, killall plasmashell, plasmashell, even the paste clipboard stopped working, and klipper brought back the paste, which still had the old frozen buffer content, but it still does not let me copy anything new to the clipboard buffer).

I also found ksmserver but not sure yet what it does. Also not sure yet how to properly restart that.

I also found dbus-daemon, which might be related. Not sure yet. Also not sure yet how to properly restart that. killall dbus-daemon did a full logout of the session.

In my ~/.profile, I have:

export LANG=C.UTF-8

I think that was the Ubuntu default.

However, when I start a shell (e.g. Konsole), I get:

gz@gcomputer:~$ echo $LANG
de_DE.UTF-8

Even when I change my ~/.profile to export LANG=en_US.UTF-8, I don't get a difference.

Why? How can I fix this?

root@gcomputer:~# apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
...
Unpacking kde-config-telepathy-accounts (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-config-telepathy-accounts_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/accounts/services/google-im.service', which is also in package account-plugin-google 0.12+16.04.20160126-0ubuntu1
...
Unpacking kaccounts-providers (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/kaccounts-providers_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/etc/signon-ui/webkit-options.d/www.facebook.com.conf', which is also in package account-plugin-facebook 0.12+16.04.20160126-0ubuntu1
...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-config-telepathy-accounts_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
 /var/cache/apt/archives/kaccounts-providers_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

So I tried again:

root@gcomputer:~# apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
kubuntu-desktop is already the newest version (1.338).
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 kde-telepathy-minimal : Depends: kde-config-telepathy-accounts (>= 15.04.0) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

So I tried that:

root@gcomputer:~# apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Correcting dependencies... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  liblept5 liblightdm-qt-3-0
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
The following additional packages will be installed:
  kde-config-telepathy-accounts
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  kde-config-telepathy-accounts
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
259 not fully installed or removed.
Need to get 0 B/137 kB of archives.
After this operation, 825 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] 
(Reading database ... 518857 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../kde-config-telepathy-accounts_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking kde-config-telepathy-accounts (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-config-telepathy-accounts_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/accounts/services/google-im.service', which is also in package account-plugin-google 0.12+16.04.20160126-0ubuntu1
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.23-0ubuntu3) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-config-telepathy-accounts_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

So I deleted it:

root@gcomputer:~# rm -rf /usr/share/accounts/services/google-im.service

But still the same:

root@gcomputer:~# apt-get install -f
...
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-config-telepathy-accounts_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 trying to overwrite '/usr/share/accounts/services/google-im.service', which is also in package account-plugin-google 0.12+16.04.20160126-0ubuntu1
Processing triggers for libc-bin (2.23-0ubuntu3) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/kde-config-telepathy-accounts_4%3a15.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

So I tried to remove the account-plugin-google package:

root@gcomputer:~# apt-get purge account-plugin-google
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 kde-telepathy-minimal : Depends: kde-config-telepathy-accounts (>= 15.04.0) but it is not going to be installed
 unity-scope-gdrive : Depends: account-plugin-google but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

So that doesn't work. I'm not sure how to proceed from there. This seems somewhat non-intuitive.

...

I thought that maybe aptitude is more clever and tries to help me more. So I tried:

root@gcomputer:~# aptitude remove account-plugin-google
The following packages will be REMOVED:  
  account-plugin-google liblept5{u} liblightdm-qt-3-0{u} 
The following partially installed packages will be configured:
... (a lot)
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 2571 kB will be freed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 unity-scope-gdrive : Depends: account-plugin-google but it is not going to be installed.
 kde-telepathy-minimal : Depends: kde-config-telepathy-accounts (>= 15.04.0) but it is not going to be installed.
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

      Remove the following packages:                               
1)      kde-telepathy                                              
2)      kde-telepathy-minimal                                      
3)      unity-scope-gdrive                                         

      Leave the following dependencies unresolved:                 
4)      unity-lens-files recommends unity-scope-gdrive             
5)      unity-lens-photos recommends account-plugin-google         
6)      kde-telepathy-approver recommends kde-telepathy            
7)      kde-telepathy-auth-handler recommends kde-telepathy        
8)      kde-telepathy-contact-list recommends kde-telepathy        
9)      kde-telepathy-filetransfer-handler recommends kde-telepathy
10)     kde-telepathy-integration-module recommends kde-telepathy  
11)     kde-telepathy-send-file recommends kde-telepathy           
12)     kde-telepathy-text-ui recommends kde-telepathy             
13)     kubuntu-desktop recommends kde-telepathy                   
14)     mcp-account-manager-uoa recommends account-plugin-google   
15)     unity recommends unity-scope-gdrive                        


Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?]   (I typed Y. Not sure but I hope the best.)
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  account-plugin-google kde-telepathy{a} kde-telepathy-approver{u} kde-telepathy-auth-handler{u} kde-telepathy-contact-list{u} 
  kde-telepathy-data{u} kde-telepathy-desktop-applets{u} kde-telepathy-filetransfer-handler{u} kde-telepathy-integration-module{u} 
  kde-telepathy-minimal{a} kde-telepathy-send-file{u} kde-telepathy-text-ui{u} libktpmodels9{u} libktpotr9{u} libktpwidgets9{u} liblept5{u} 
  liblightdm-qt-3-0{u} qml-module-org-kde-telepathy{u} unity-scope-gdrive{a} 
The following partially installed packages will be configured:
... (again a lot...)
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 19 to remove and 1 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 8489 kB will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n/?]   (I typed Y.)
(Reading database ... 518855 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing kde-telepathy (15.04.20ubuntu1) ...
Removing kde-telepathy-minimal (15.04.20ubuntu1) ...
Removing kde-telepathy-approver (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing kde-telepathy-auth-handler (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing kde-telepathy-contact-list (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing kde-telepathy-text-ui (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing kde-telepathy-send-file (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing kde-telepathy-desktop-applets (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing kde-telepathy-filetransfer-handler (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing kde-telepathy-integration-module (4:15.12.1-2ubuntu2) ...
Removing qml-module-org-kde-telepathy (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing libktpwidgets9 (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing libktpmodels9 (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing libktpotr9 (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing unity-scope-gdrive (0.9+16.04.20151125-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing account-plugin-google (0.12+16.04.20160126-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing liblept5 (1.73-1) ...
Removing liblightdm-qt-3-0:amd64 (1.18.2-0ubuntu1) ...
Removing kde-telepathy-data (4:15.12.3-0ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon (0.5.3~bzr0+16.04.20160701-0ubuntu1) ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf-2.index...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.13.3-6ubuntu3.1) ...
Current status: 0 (-1) broken.

So, that seems to have done something. Not sure if it was fine. The final message is a bit confusing. 0 (-1) broken == 0 (+1) fixed?

I wanted to check with apt-get again:

root@gcomputer:~# apt-get install kubuntu-desktop
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
kubuntu-desktop is already the newest version (1.338).
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  kaccounts-integration kde-telepathy-kaccounts kde-telepathy-kpeople libkaccounts1 libktpcommoninternals9 libktplogger9 libtelepathy-logger-qt5
  libtelepathy-qt5-0 signon-kwallet-extension telepathy-accounts-signon
Use 'apt autoremove' to remove them.
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 1 not upgraded.

I still wonder about these kde-telepathy things. They are optional? I don't have them now? They are broken?

On Ubuntu 16.04:

gz@gcomputer:~$ startx


X.Org X Server 1.18.3
Release Date: 2016-04-04
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 3.13.0-86-generic x86_64 Ubuntu
Current Operating System: Linux gcomputer 4.4.0-31-generic #50-Ubuntu SMP Wed Jul 13 00:07:12 UTC 2016 x86_64
Kernel command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-4.4.0-31-generic root=UUID=56fc92d2-1903-4263-b88e-d09bc15ef1d3 ro quiet splash
Build Date: 18 May 2016  01:07:07AM
xorg-server 2:1.18.3-1ubuntu2.2 (For technical support please see http://www.ubuntu.com/support) 
Current version of pixman: 0.33.6
    Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
    to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
    (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/home/gz/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.1.log", Time: Sat Jul 30 18:12:37 2016
(==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
(EE) 
Fatal server error:
(EE) parse_vt_settings: Cannot open /dev/tty0 (No such file or directory)
(EE) 
(EE) 
Please consult the The X.Org Foundation support 
     at http://wiki.x.org
 for help. 
(EE) Please also check the log file at "/home/gz/.local/share/xorg/Xorg.1.log" for additional information.
(EE) 
(EE) Server terminated with error (1). Closing log file.

^Cxinit: giving up
xinit: unable to connect to X server: Connection refused
xinit: unexpected signal 2
Couldn't get a file descriptor referring to the console

Why?

I found this related question. According to its accepted answer, I should edit /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config as follow:

allowed_users=anybody
needs_root_rights=yes

I did that but that doesn't change anything for me.

The comments seems to suggest that startx is broken in Ubuntu. Why is that? If that is the case, maybe the answer to my original question is "startx is not possible anymore because ...", or "making it possible would have ... drawbacks" or so?

root@gcomputer:~# dpkg-reconfigure x11-common
update-rc.d: warning: start and stop actions are no longer supported; falling back to defaults
insserv: warning: script 'S04powernowd.early' missing LSB tags and overrides
insserv: warning: script 'powernowd.early' missing LSB tags and overrides

Not sure what this means.

Ubuntu 16.04. I booted into my system but I landed in the console login. Why did it not start my graphical login? How can I fix that? How can I debug that?

Some messages from journalctl -xb:

Jul 30 17:44:58 gcomputer dbus[2494]: [system] Failed to activate service 'org.freesmartphone.ogsmd': timed out
Jul 30 17:44:58 gcomputer dbus[2494]: [system] Activating service name='org.freesmartphone.ogsmd' (using servicehelper)
Jul 30 17:44:58 gcomputer org.freesmartphone.ogsmd[2494]: 2016-07-30T15:44:58.105551Z [WARN]  subsystem : Could not load plugin: Could not load /us
Jul 30 17:45:07 gcomputer kdm[2881]: X server termination timeout, killing
Jul 30 17:45:07 gcomputer kdm[2881]: X server for display :0 cannot be started, session disabled
Jul 30 17:45:23 gcomputer dbus[2494]: [system] Failed to activate service 'org.freesmartphone.ogsmd': timed out
Jul 30 17:45:23 gcomputer dbus[2494]: [system] Activating service name='org.freesmartphone.ogsmd' (using servicehelper)
Jul 30 17:45:23 gcomputer org.freesmartphone.ogsmd[2494]: 2016-07-30T15:45:23.129582Z [WARN]  subsystem : Could not load plugin: Could not load /us
Jul 30 17:45:48 gcomputer dbus[2494]: [system] Failed to activate service 'org.freesmartphone.ogsmd': timed out
Jul 30 17:45:48 gcomputer dbus[2494]: [system] Activating service name='org.freesmartphone.ogsmd' (using servicehelper)
Jul 30 17:45:48 gcomputer org.freesmartphone.ogsmd[2494]: 2016-07-30T15:45:48.156545Z [WARN]  subsystem : Could not load plugin: Could not load /us
Jul 30 17:46:13 gcomputer dbus[2494]: [system] Failed to activate service 'org.freesmartphone.ogsmd': timed out
Jul 30 17:46:14 gcomputer dbus[2494]: [system] Rejected send message, 1 matched rules; type="method_call", sender=":1.20" (uid=0 pid=2803 comm="/us
Jul 30 17:47:13 gcomputer systemd[1]: Reloading.
...
Jul 30 17:48:19 gcomputer console-kit-daemon[4607]: (process:4671): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_slice_set_config: assertion 'sys_page_size == 0' failed
Jul 30 17:48:19 gcomputer console-kit-daemon[4607]: missing action
Jul 30 17:48:19 gcomputer dbus[2494]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.freedesktop.ConsoleKit'
Jul 30 17:48:19 gcomputer systemd[1]: Started Console Manager.

Maybe also relevant:

root@gcomputer:~# systemctl get-default
graphical.target

root@gcomputer:~# systemctl status kdm
● kdm.service - LSB: X display manager for KDE
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/init.d/kdm; bad; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Sun 2016-07-31 01:41:27 CEST; 7h left
     Docs: man:systemd-sysv-generator(8)
   CGroup: /system.slice/kdm.service
           └─2881 /usr/bin/kdm

Jul 31 01:41:27 gcomputer systemd[1]: Starting LSB: X display manager for KDE...
Jul 31 01:41:27 gcomputer kdm[2562]:  * Starting K Display Manager kdm
Jul 31 01:41:27 gcomputer kdm[2562]:    ...done.
Jul 31 01:41:27 gcomputer systemd[1]: Started LSB: X display manager for KDE.
Jul 31 01:41:57 gcomputer kdm[2881]: X server startup timeout, terminating
Jul 30 17:45:07 gcomputer kdm[2881]: X server termination timeout, killing
Jul 30 17:45:07 gcomputer kdm[2881]: X server for display :0 cannot be started, session disabled

root@gcomputer:~# systemctl status lightdm.service
● lightdm.service - Light Display Manager
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/lightdm.service; static; vendor preset: enabled)
   Active: inactive (dead)
     Docs: man:lightdm(1)

Jul 30 18:24:22 gcomputer systemd[1]: Stopped Light Display Manager.
Jul 30 18:24:22 gcomputer systemd[1]: Starting Light Display Manager...
Jul 30 18:24:22 gcomputer systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Control process exited, code=exited status=1
Jul 30 18:24:22 gcomputer systemd[1]: Failed to start Light Display Manager.
Jul 30 18:24:22 gcomputer systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Unit entered failed state.
Jul 30 18:24:22 gcomputer systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jul 30 18:24:22 gcomputer systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Service hold-off time over, scheduling restart.
Jul 30 18:24:22 gcomputer systemd[1]: Stopped Light Display Manager.
Jul 30 18:24:22 gcomputer systemd[1]: lightdm.service: Start request repeated too quickly.
Jul 30 18:24:22 gcomputer systemd[1]: Failed to start Light Display Manager.

There is not a single error in /var/log/Xorg.0.log. Not sure where else to look:

root@gcomputer:~# grep EE /var/log/Xorg.0.log
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
root@gcomputer:~# tail -n 10 /var/log/Xorg.0.log
    i810, i810-dc100, i810e, i815, i830M, 845G, 854, 852GM/855GM, 865G,
    915G, E7221 (i915), 915GM, 945G, 945GM, 945GME, Pineview GM,
    Pineview G, 965G, G35, 965Q, 946GZ, 965GM, 965GME/GLE, G33, Q35, Q33,
    GM45, 4 Series, G45/G43, Q45/Q43, G41, B43
[     3.709] (II) intel: Driver for Intel(R) HD Graphics: 2000-6000
[     3.709] (II) intel: Driver for Intel(R) Iris(TM) Graphics: 5100, 6100
[     3.709] (II) intel: Driver for Intel(R) Iris(TM) Pro Graphics: 5200, 6200, P6300
[     3.709] (II) modesetting: Driver for Modesetting Kernel Drivers: kms
[     3.709] (II) FBDEV: driver for framebuffer: fbdev
[     3.709] (II) VESA: driver for VESA chipsets: vesa

root@gcomputer:~# systemctl status x11-common
● x11-common.service
   Loaded: masked (/dev/null; bad)
   Active: inactive (dead)

I tried systemctl unmask x11-common and systemctl unmask x11-common.service but that did not change anything.

How do I unmask it?

I have Ubuntu 16.04. I just replaced the hardware (new motherboard, new CPU, new GPU, new RAM, new network card, new SATA controller) and now Ubuntu doesn't boot up anymore. After a while, I get into the emergency shell and it seems I have full access to the system there. I was able to manually setup the network (ifconfig en5ps0 up; dhclient en5ps0 <- very strange interface name it came up with). When looking at the journal (journalctl -xb), it seems like it got a timeout while waiting for some disk it does not find anymore.

Some maybe relevant journal messages:

...
systemd: Received SIGRTMIN+21 from PID 2816 (plymouthd).
...
root: /etc/dhcp/dhclient-enter-hooks.d/avahi-autoipd returned non-zero exit status 1
...
root: /etc/dhcp/dhclient-enter-hooks.d/samba returned non-zero exit status 1
...
systemd: Received SIGRTMIN+20 from PID 3100 (plymouthd).
...
systemd: dev-disk-by\x2duuid-....device: Job dev-disk-by\x2duuid-...device/start timed out.
systemd: Timed out waiting for device dev-disk-by\x2duuid-....device.
-- Subject: Unit dev-disk-by...device has failed
...
-- The result is timeout.
systemd: Dependency failed for File System Check on /dev/disk/by-uuid/....
...
systemd: Dependency failed for /mnt/....
...
systemd: Dependency failed for Local File Systems.
...

/etc/fstab:

root@gcomputer:~# cat /etc/fstab 
# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# <file system> <mount point>   <type>  <options>       <dump>  <pass>
proc            /proc           proc    defaults        0       0

#/dev/sdb1: UUID="56fc92d2-1903-4263-b88e-d09bc15ef1d3" TYPE="ext4"
#/dev/sdb2: UUID="f9b799de-c564-4e00-9924-4e8a0ffe8d51" TYPE="swap"

# new SSD (OCZ-VERTEX2_OCZ-K5Q40019666QDZLM)
UUID=56fc92d2-1903-4263-b88e-d09bc15ef1d3 /               ext4    discard,noatime,user_xattr,acl,relatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1

# /dev/sdb5:
# UUID=78ca7a27-6fcc-493c-a10a-5ed961a682e5 none            swap    discard,sw              0       0


/dev/scd0       /media/cdrom0   udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec,utf8 0       0

# very old Gentoo (ST380011A_5JVHHAX0)
UUID=64f30a2f-1c38-40e8-8ab2-7f639b9c3673   /mnt/gentooroot reiserfs    user_xattr,acl  0 1
UUID=a448006c-43df-4fbe-be3d-18da22b4e29c   /mnt/gentooroot/home    reiserfs    user_xattr,acl  0 1

# oldroot (WDC_WD5000AACS-00G8B1_WD-WCAUK0065639)
UUID=2474adbe-ca12-4ad1-bea1-1938fdb1c8a4   /mnt/oldroot            ext3    noatime,user_xattr,acl,relatime,errors=remount-ro 0       1

blkid:

root@gcomputer:~# blkid
/dev/sda1: UUID="56fc92d2-1903-4263-b88e-d09bc15ef1d3" TYPE="ext4" PTTYPE="dos" PARTUUID="2db0af09-01"
/dev/sda2: UUID="f9b799de-c564-4e00-9924-4e8a0ffe8d51" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="2db0af09-02"
/dev/sdb1: UUID="2474adbe-ca12-4ad1-bea1-1938fdb1c8a4" SEC_TYPE="ext2" TYPE="ext3" PARTUUID="00039d20-01"
/dev/sdb5: UUID="78ca7a27-6fcc-493c-a10a-5ed961a682e5" TYPE="swap" PARTUUID="00039d20-05"

So, how do I fix this? Why does it even wait for the disk? The root filesystem including home and everything which it needs is already available.

Do I need to tell udev or systemd or whatever to rescan for new hardware or for new disk ids or so? Why doesn't it do that automatically?

How would I debug that further?

I get this output:

$ startx
X.Org X Server 1.15.1
Release Date: 2014-04-13
X Protocol Version 11, Revision 0
Build Operating System: Linux 3.2.0-70-generic x86_64 Ubuntu
Current Operating System: Linux gcomputer 3.2.0-59-lowlatency #61-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT Tue Jan 28 09:16:18 UTC 2014 x86_64
Kernel command line: root=UUID=56fc92d2-1903-4263-b88e-d09bc15ef1d3 ro quiet splash 
Build Date: 10 December 2014  06:15:52PM
xorg-server 2:1.15.1-0ubuntu2.6 (For technical support please see http://www.ubuntu.com/support) 
Current version of pixman: 0.30.2
    Before reporting problems, check http://wiki.x.org
    to make sure that you have the latest version.
Markers: (--) probed, (**) from config file, (==) default setting,
    (++) from command line, (!!) notice, (II) informational,
    (WW) warning, (EE) error, (NI) not implemented, (??) unknown.
(==) Log file: "/var/log/Xorg.1.log", Time: Tue Dec 23 13:32:06 2014
(==) Using system config directory "/usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d"
Initializing built-in extension Generic Event Extension
Initializing built-in extension SHAPE
Initializing built-in extension MIT-SHM
Initializing built-in extension XInputExtension
Initializing built-in extension XTEST
Initializing built-in extension BIG-REQUESTS
Initializing built-in extension SYNC
Initializing built-in extension XKEYBOARD
Initializing built-in extension XC-MISC
Initializing built-in extension SECURITY
Initializing built-in extension XINERAMA
Initializing built-in extension XFIXES
Initializing built-in extension RENDER
Initializing built-in extension RANDR
Initializing built-in extension COMPOSITE
Initializing built-in extension DAMAGE
Initializing built-in extension MIT-SCREEN-SAVER
Initializing built-in extension DOUBLE-BUFFER
Initializing built-in extension RECORD
Initializing built-in extension DPMS
Initializing built-in extension Present
Initializing built-in extension DRI3
Initializing built-in extension X-Resource
Initializing built-in extension XVideo
Initializing built-in extension XVideo-MotionCompensation
Initializing built-in extension SELinux
Initializing built-in extension XFree86-VidModeExtension
Initializing built-in extension XFree86-DGA
Initializing built-in extension XFree86-DRI
Initializing built-in extension DRI2
Loading extension GLX
modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:809 kmod_module_insert_module() could not find module by name='nvidia_304'
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'nvidia_304': Function not implemented
modprobe: ERROR: ../libkmod/libkmod-module.c:809 kmod_module_insert_module() could not find module by name='nvidia_304'
modprobe: ERROR: could not insert 'nvidia_304': Function not implemented
The XKEYBOARD keymap compiler (xkbcomp) reports:
> Warning:          Type "PC_RALT_LEVEL2" has 2 levels, but <LALT> has 3 symbols
>                   Ignoring extra symbols
Errors from xkbcomp are not fatal to the X server
xinit: connection to X server lost

waiting for X server to shut down (EE) Server terminated successfully (0). Closing log file.

xinit: unexpected signal 2

Not sure what that means. nvidia-304 is installed. Although I'm not sure if that is the correct driver and/or it was correctly installed for the correct Xorg+kernel (how can I check?). I thought I had reset all settings (in /etc), however, not sure (how can I check?).

Where are the screen resolution settings? I started the KDE system settings and see this:

Are there somewhere else? Where?

Or is something broken? Maybe some missing permissions?

$ apt-get install -f -o 'Dpkg::Options::=--force-confmiss --force-all --force-confnew --overwrite-conffiles' --reinstall at-spi2-core
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
You might want to run 'apt-get -f install' to correct these:
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 kde-workspace-bin : Depends: qdbus but it is not going to be installed
 libqt4-dbus : Depends: qdbus (= 4:4.8.5+git192-g085f851+dfsg-2ubuntu4) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

I don't quite understand "but it is not going to be installed". Why doesn't it install it then?

apt-get -f install does not help, it does nothing:

$ apt-get install -f
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

$ apt-get install kde-plasma-desktop
...
Setting up oxygen-cursor-theme (0.0.2012-06-kde4.8-2.1ubuntu1) ...
update-alternatives: error: alternative path /etc/X11/cursors/oxy-white.theme doesn't exist
dpkg: error processing package oxygen-cursor-theme (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 2
...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 oxygen-cursor-theme
 kde-workspace-data
 kde-workspace-bin
 kde-workspace
 kde-plasma-desktop

What can I do?

I am trying to do apt-get dist-upgrade but I get the error:

E: Could not perform immediate configuration on 'util-linux'.Please see man 5 apt.conf under APT::Immediate-Configure for details. (2)

How can I resolve this?

I tried both aptitude -y safe-upgrade and apt-get upgrade -f but in both cases, I get:

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages have been kept back:
... (long list)
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 903 not upgraded.

I guess this resulted from several hacks where I tried to update my system (trying to work around this problem).

My question now: Why are they kept back? What can I do to install them?

On a similar question, I got the suggestion to just use apt-get dist-upgrade instead. However, that fails at the moment for me because of:

E: Could not perform immediate configuration on 'util-linux'.Please see man 5 apt.conf under APT::Immediate-Configure for details. (2)

This is this problem.