Fort Worth Linux Users Group Discussion Board

I recently upgraded a couple PCs from 7.10 to 8.04 "Hardy Heron". Even though the new release came out over two months ago, I ran the upgrades Wed Jun 18. I usually hold back on distribution upgrades so that the patches can catch up - not a real big fan of bugs - maybe this time I didn't wait long enough.

So, I just ran across a small piece of bleeding edge brokenness, even after a pretty extensive pile of critical patches [to "Hardy Heron"].

My mother-in-law just informed me that her audio reminders were no longer telling her when it was time for her breathing treatments, she was still seeing the visual ones but not the accompanying audio reminders.
I had set these up using crontab:
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0 09 * * * /usr/bin/play /home/marge/reminder.wav
1 09 * * * DISPLAY=:0.0 xmessage "Time for your breathing treatment"
0 15 * * * /usr/bin/play /home/marge/reminder.wav
1 15 * * * DISPLAY=:0.0 xmessage "Time for your breathing treatment"
0 21 * * * /usr/bin/play /home/marge/reminder.wav
1 21 * * * DISPLAY=:0.0 xmessage "Time for your breathing treatment"
0 08 27 6 wed DISPLAY=:0.0 xmessage "Watch for UPS delivery"
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The good news is, the solution was only a google search away - "play soxio: Failed reading".
The very first hit revealed a link to discussions that indicated the need to install additional packages:
libsox-fmt-base
libsox-fmt-ffmpeg
libsox-fmt-flac
libsox-fmt-gsm
libsox-fmt-mp3
libsox-fmt-ogg
libsox-fmt-sndfile
libsox-fmt-alsa
libsox-fmt-ao
libsox-fmt-oss
libsox-fmt-all

Only one single command will install all of them:
sudo apt-get install libsox-fmt-*
So; Not a BIG deal, but, it seems that "Hardy Heron" is not so Hardy.
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I think this is why Stack says he uses Debian "sarge" rather than Ubuntu, it's cutting edge vs bleeding edge. (Stack, correct me if I'm quoting you wrong.)
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To those that might take offense, I assure you, I only pick on Ubuntu in jest - Bleeding Edge and Cutting edge are both great places to be, our most valuable pioneers ride the wave of the future on the Bleeding Edge, while others take a nice smooth ride on the Cutting Edge of stable release and even though I'm very fond of Slackware, I do venture out on the Bleeding Edge every chance I get.

BTW, has anyone tried one of the new Debian Live CDs?: http://debian-live.alioth.debian.org/

Yeah, you got my quote mostly correct.
I do encourage people to move to Debian Sarge (stable) just because there are fewer problems and packages are tested very well. Though I personally almost always run Debian Lenny(testing) (except for high importance production servers...those are Sarge as well). Then again, I like being on the edge just a bit. I like being close enough to the edge to help out, but continuously falling off the edge due to a bug (Debian Sid) annoys me more then it helps anyone.

As far as Hardy is concerned, I have several friends/family that have Ubuntu systems I help with and so far Hardy is making a mess of things.
Network mangler....uguhmm.. excuse me...Network Manager is always failing at wireless connections, especially when the SSID is not being broad cast. There are a TON of bugs with the Intel sound cards that are sill being worked on. However, the one that gets me more then anything else is the Laptop suspend. Works absolutely perfectly in Gutsy on three different laptops, yet fails miserably on Hardy on all three.

Several of them downgraded back to Gutsy (Actually, I only know of three people who moved to and stayed with Hardy...and I am one).

The only reason why I haven't moved my Laptop back is because I am helping trace down a bug with the Intel sound card and am tying to help them fix it for the Intrepid release.


Anyway, moving on from frustration to fun.....

The Debian Live CD project is AWSOME!

I have already custom made two CD's for two different projects. The first was for work (we were using Knoppix, but we don't have a DVD drive and the packages on 5.1 are getting too old*) and the second one was just for me. I am already up to my 8th revision and have it working on CD, DVD, and USB thumb drives. I keep adding packages to it and I still have like 300MB left on the CD to use!

This is the presentation I want to do sometime soon. Maybe I could do a presentation in August or September. Anyway, it is a blast working with the Debian Live CD project.

Have fun!
~Stack~

*Knoppix is only releasing DVD's from now on.

What is the procedure to downgrade back to Gutsy?

OK, so downgrading can go very easily....or it can go very badly...and there isn't much to tell you ahead of time.
To be honest, the best way in my opinion is the following:
1) Full backup of the partitions, especially /etc/ and /home (I hope you have a separate /home partition, then you can backup to it and leave it alone)
2) dpkg --list > /backup/installed_programs.list
3) lsmod > /backup/installed_modules.list
4) Reinstall with Gutsy disc.

Downgrading can be done. However, it is also possible that you will run into packages that are no longer around. Or worse yet, you need to downgrade a package past the point in which the package existed. Even worse then that is downgrading and missing kernel modules that should have been there. It is a very messy process....not many people care to devote their time to making sure you can go backwards.....

Anyway...do make sure that you know what modules are being loaded and that you have a list of the programs and have the config files from /etc and you should be good to go on a quick, easy, and (hopefully) painless rebuild.

I know you are an experienced Linux user and have done countless rebuilds...but...
PLEASE! REMEMBER!
Don't format your /home partition!*

Good luck!
Have fun!
~Stack~


* My sisters Ubuntu computer started having problems. She has 2 drives in it. A 20GB drive with /, /var/, and swap and an 80GB /home. I powered it on and the 20GB / drive had the click of death. There were so many errors and bad blocks that it wasn't even funny. Found a replacement drive for her and slapped it in and did a rebuild. I had a retard moment and wasn't thinking when I set it up....yeah I formatted her /home.
Thankfully, I am slightly paranoid when working on other peoples computers and had done a complete backup complete with a sha256sum check before hand. She never noticed a difference in her /home directory. Still....it annoys me so much that I did something so silly...
Gotta love backups....
Here's hoping others learn from my goof ups and never do the same!