Finally destroyed Solus 3 installation :-(

[User1]

Hi there!

I'm new to this OS (used elementaryOS some time ago). Heavy Windows-User and technically advanced. After lot of researching and comparing several Linux OS with live USB I went for Solus now.

It was a heavy procedure to get this thing installed along with Windows 10 on a Acer Aspire Notebook.
After fiddling around I managed it to boot Solus and started to configure it, installing programs and ... deinstalled also some I just installed...

Then it came that after a restart Solus OS didnt boot to GUI anymore. I tried to get it to work again by using eopk and re-installed budgie-desktop, gnome-xxx-stuff and so on but startx fails.

So long story short:
Is there a way to "repair" my fresh installed and configured installation or do I have to install new?

2. Question:
Does it make sense to use seperate partitions for /, /home and swap? For hibernate? For not losing data when upgrading to Solus 4 in future?

3. Question:
How to be able to select booting to Windows or Solus?
As written I was only able to change OS with F12 bootmenu. Modify goofy loader? Modify windows loader? Install GRUB?

4. Question:
How to avoid such situation in the future? Is it not possible to "test install" some programs and deieting it afterwards without destroying the system or leaving "tons" of dead software in the OS?

With the best greetings from Germany
User1 =)

[kyrios]

It was a heavy procedure to get this thing installed along with Windows 10 on a Acer Aspire Notebook.

Heavy procedure ? All you have to do is to click next !!!

After fiddling around I managed it to boot Solus and started to configure it, installing programs and ... deinstalled also some I just installed...

Then it came that after a restart Solus OS didnt boot to GUI anymore. I tried to get it to work again by using eopk and re-installed budgie-desktop, gnome-xxx-stuff and so on but startx fails.

So long story short:
Is there a way to "repair" my fresh installed and configured installation or do I have to install new?

It is not easy to find out what is going wrong with so vague information.
I guess you may have uninstalled things you should not have removed or perhaps you may have installed wrong drivers or installed drivers without insuring your kernel is up to date.

First thing to do is to run "sudo eopkg up". You may have a look at the help center and more specifically at the troubleshooting section.

I would really be surprised that startx works since we use display managers. Did you check the logs ?

If it is a fresh install, wouldn't it be faster to resinstall ?

Does it make sense to use seperate partitions for /, /home and swap? For hibernate? For not losing data when upgrading to Solus 4 in future?

Swap partition is mainly required for hibernation (should be larger than the amount of RAM your machine has) or for systems with very few RAM or for specific apps/work that requires more memory than your system has.

It can make sense to have separate partitions for / and /home but it also have some constraints (i.e.: bad sizing and you end up with a partition full and the other partition that still has lot of free space).

Solus is a rolling release which means it is continuously updated. There won't be any upgrade to Solus 4 like you have with fixed/point releases like elementary.

How to be able to select booting to Windows or Solus?
As written I was only able to change OS with F12 bootmenu. Modify goofy loader? Modify windows loader? Install GRUB?

Like explained in the manual

How to avoid such situation in the future? Is it not possible to "test install" some programs and deieting it afterwards without destroying the system or leaving "tons" of dead software in the OS?

Since I don't understand how you break your system, it's hard to tell. Just do not remove anything from system.base and don't try to remove dependencies that were automatically installed with an application. Just remove the application you installed.

[sunnyflunk]

So long story short:
Is there a way to "repair" my fresh installed and configured installation or do I have to install new?

You can likelky boot Solus and hit Ctrl+Alt+F2 to login to a tty. Here you will want to perform a full system update

Code: Select all

sudo eopkg up

2. Question:
Does it make sense to use seperate partitions for /, /home and swap? For hibernate? For not losing data when upgrading to Solus 4 in future?

That's up to you. Reusing a /home partition leads to old config files which can cause issues if used on multiple versions of software. Another alternative is to store data files separately rather than the full /home directory

3. Question:
How to be able to select booting to Windows or Solus?
As written I was only able to change OS with F12 bootmenu. Modify goofy loader? Modify windows loader? Install GRUB?

You can show the boot menu via: https://solus-project.com/articles/trou ... lt-on-boot This will search for standard windows bootloaders each boot if they are present on the same ESP. (Note you'll want the ESP to be reasonable size, typically 512MB)

4. Question:
How to avoid such situation in the future? Is it not possible to "test install" some programs and deieting it afterwards without destroying the system or leaving "tons" of dead software in the OS?

You will need to perform a full update. Installing software without updating the system first (particularly on a clean install) will lead to such issues.

[User1]

Heavy procedure ? All you have to do is to click next !!!

Yes, I also had this option when I first installed Solus. But I choose another because installer also recognized my elementaryOS installation as "Ubuntu 16.04" and gave me the option to replace this with. But after a reboot it did not work and I did some manual partition and after the third (also not working) installation I remembered something and also found someone posting the same issue here in the forum that is with the Acer Aspire UEFI.

First thing to do is to run "sudo eopkg up". You may have a look at the help center and more specifically at the troubleshooting section.

I think I did already a sudo eopkg up with "no success" ->

I would really be surprised that startx works since we use display managers. Did you check the logs ?

What to do else thant startx to start the GUI?

If it is a fresh install, wouldn't it be faster to resinstall ?

Maybe, yes. But I already installed some apps and did some configuration of them. Also I "want the hard way" to get more into Linux/Solus for future problems and for interest and to understand things better. Of course only, if it is possible and not way to much time consuming.

Swap partition is mainly required for hibernation (should be larger than the amount of RAM your machine has) or for systems with very few RAM or for specific apps/work that requires more memory than your system has.

Thanks. So for a notebook it does make clearly sense in my opinion. How much bigger? I read that it just needs to be the size of the RAM which is 8192 MB in my case.

It can make sense to have separate partitions for / and /home but it also have some constraints (i.e.: bad sizing and you end up with a partition full and the other partition that still has lot of free space).

Yes, I´m aware of this but think it´s not so important for me as you alway can resize partitions if necessary.

Solus is a rolling release which means it is continuously updated. There won't be any upgrade to Solus 4 like you have with fixed/point releases like elementary.

Ah yes, I forgot that. Just have this version number "3" in my mind and read something about "4" on the internet.

Like explained in the manual

Thanks, I will try that.

Since I don't understand how you break your system, it's hard to tell. Just do not remove anything from system.base and don't try to remove dependencies that were automatically installed with an application. Just remove the application you installed.

But how to deinstall just the application I installed without removing the dependencies and why is that? Didn´t see any option in the software manager.

Here is what I did to damage the system:
1. Installed "pulseaudio" as I was looking for some dlna client
2. Removed "pulseadio"

See attached image what has been deinstalled.
I manually installed some of these packages again but end up with the console when booting up.

[User1]

You can likelky boot Solus and hit Ctrl+Alt+F2 to login to a tty. Here you will want to perform a full system update

Code: Select all

sudo eopkg up

I will check again if that helps.

That's up to you. Reusing a /home partition leads to old config files which can cause issues if used on multiple versions of software. Another alternative is to store data files separately rather than the full /home directory

What do you mean with "resusing"?

You can show the boot menu via: https://solus-project.com/articles/trou ... lt-on-boot This will search for standard windows bootloaders each boot if they are present on the same ESP. (Note you'll want the ESP to be reasonable size, typically 512MB)

Thanks. Same as kyrios wrote and I also found this yesterday, too.

You will need to perform a full update. Installing software without updating the system first (particularly on a clean install) will lead to such issues.

Full update? I can not try out some application and deleting it like on Windows or MacOS? Really?

I need to check why one of my Windows (data) partitions is now shown as "raw" instead of ntfs and not giving access to my data. Did not touch that partition at all.... :-/

[Lorsio]

I don't know if it's related, but I didn't got any graphical interface because I had the nvidia package installed. I had to remove every one of them and it worked.

I used "eopkg li | grep nvidia" to know which one were installed.

[sunnyflunk]

You will need to perform a full update. Installing software without updating the system first (particularly on a clean install) will lead to such issues.

Full update? I can not try out some application and deleting it like on Windows or MacOS? Really?

A full update ensures that all packages are using the same ABI/API (as packages are rebuilt to do so). After installation a full update is easily the best thing you can do (as the longer since the system has been updated, the more likely there is ABI/API breakage). Without a full update and installing packages, you will be installing some updates, but not all.

[Craig-toyoracer]

Hello User 1. You will be better off re-installing from LiveCD ( fresh, clean start ) and then add your apps and configure ( gives you more practice )

Everything will then work and you can enjoy the Solus experience.

[User1]

Thanks guys for your support!

I managed it to "undo" what I messed up and to get back to a running system simply by using the rollback feature of eopkg!
Thanks for that hint. I was impressed that it worked so easily!

Is there anything against to use that feature for trying out new software and deleting it afterwards?

I have some more stuff that I would need to know and to talk about but I better open new topics for each of them I guess?!

[User1]

You will need to perform a full update. Installing software without updating the system first (particularly on a clean install) will lead to such issues.

Full update? I can not try out some application and deleting it like on Windows or MacOS? Really?

A full update ensures that all packages are using the same ABI/API (as packages are rebuilt to do so). After installation a full update is easily the best thing you can do (as the longer since the system has been updated, the more likely there is ABI/API breakage). Without a full update and installing packages, you will be installing some updates, but not all.

I did that but I guess we misunderstand each other maybe.
I'm talking about the general "good practice" how to try out some software and safely removing it afterwards in the case I don't want to keep it. Why is it that in my case the pulseaudio had only a few dependencies when installing and way more when uninstalling resulting in destroying my system?

EDIT:
That in mind, how secure is it to install the announced updates on a daily check? I don't want to have that kind of problems again only by keeping my system up to date.