debian 10 ?

[haaber]

Hi fellows, I tried to qvm-clone & upgrade a debian-9 to debian-10
(buster). In a reproducible way, the apt-get dist-upgrade will fail
while installing (so: after download is finished) with the terminal
crashing surprisingly. So NO output is available.
I then (again: reproducibly) try to get access to the half-upgraded
system by running qvm-run -v -u root debian-10 xterm - which fails as
well saying "command failed with code 1" -- thereby not even unveiling a
minor hint where the error might sit. I have no idea how I could
possibly get to re-animate this half-dead install, if I cannot even get
an xterm. If I shutdown it, it will maybe start (or hang, who knows)
since it remains inaccessible. My last try is still running in hope for
some help from you.

Cheers, Bernhard

[Foppe de Haan]

tried 'sudo xl console debian-10'?

[haaber]

I tried it 10h ago and it was completely stalled with random ascii-chars
mixed between text. I could not even quit it without killing the
dom0-terminal. Now, hours later, after reading you message, I tried once
more, and it worked, at least a bit: I could relaunch apt --fix-broken
and it went well - until it got stuck with "Setting up grub-pc" followed
by random-looking ascii code that actually is not random but should
probably be one of these "blue/white ascii boxes" with a text menu and
some choice that is instead shot "raw" and without color in the console
(and thus hardly readable). The console does not react any more on the
keyboard, no clue how to continue ...

Bernhard

[unman]

I dont want to be *that* person, but this upgrade works flawlessly for
me.
Can you check you have upgraded debian-9 prior to clone, and then
changed the Qubes repos to use buster, as well as the Debian, before
running apt update?

unman

[haaber]

Dear Unman, stupid me! It was up-to-date, but in qubes.r4-list was
lurking an overlooked stretch. Next time sed rather than vi :))
Since this broke the update receiver I could not repair it by
downloading missing packages, and I decided to restart once more from
scratch ... I presume things will work now. Thank you.

[Jon deps]

what is the suggested method to trim the template in 4.0 now ?

as Compacting the Upgraded Template Section has no reference for 4.0

https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/template/debian/upgrade-8-to-9/

I just upgraded from 9 to 10 using these instructions

[Chris Laprise]

On 3/29/19 10:02 PM, Jon deps wrote:
> On 3/28/19 7:45 PM, haaber wrote:
>> On 3/28/19 11:55 PM, unman wrote:
>>> On Thu, Mar 28, 2019 at 10:00:22PM +1100, haaber wrote:
>>>>
>>> I dont want to be *that* person, but this upgrade works flawlessly for
>>> me.
>>> Can you check you have upgraded debian-9 prior to clone, and then
>>> changed the Qubes repos to use buster, as well as the Debian, before
>>> running apt update?
>>
>> Dear Unman, stupid me! It was up-to-date, but in qubes.r4-list was
>> lurking an overlooked stretch. Next time sed rather than vi :))
>> Since this broke the update receiver I could not repair it by
>> downloading missing packages, and I decided to restart once more from
>> scratch ... I presume things will work now.  Thank you.
>>
>
> what is the suggested method to trim the template in 4.0  now ?
>
> as  Compacting the Upgraded Template Section  has no reference for 4.0

In 4.0 its supposed to be automatic. However, there is some flaw with
Linux discard mount option and it may still leave some fraction of
blocks un-trimmed. The good news is now you only need to run 'fstrim -a'
in the template.

Auto trimming is also imperfect for appVM private volumes, so trimming
there occasionally can free gigabytes of disk space.

>
> https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/template/debian/upgrade-8-to-9/
>
> I just upgraded from 9 to 10   using these instructions
>

--

Chris Laprise, tas...@posteo.net
https://github.com/tasket
https://twitter.com/ttaskett
PGP: BEE2 20C5 356E 764A 73EB 4AB3 1DC4 D106 F07F 1886

[brenda...@gmail.com]

On Friday, March 29, 2019 at 10:39:36 PM UTC-4, Chris Laprise wrote:
> In 4.0 its supposed to be automatic. However, there is some flaw with
> Linux discard mount option and it may still leave some fraction of
> blocks un-trimmed. The good news is now you only need to run 'fstrim -a'
> in the template.
>
> Auto trimming is also imperfect for appVM private volumes, so trimming
> there occasionally can free gigabytes of disk space.

Indeed, as it can return storage to the LVM thin pool for reuse, as virtual trimming is handled as releasing storage back to the pool.

Templates:
I manually update all my templates, so it's always:
$ <OS-specific-update-command(s)>
$ sudo fstrim -av
$ sudo shutdown -h now

AppVMs:
Similar except I remind myself to dismount any large volumes mounted
(those can take to run trim against):
$ sudo fstrim -av
$ sudo shutdown -h now

B

[brenda...@gmail.com]

On Saturday, March 30, 2019 at 9:35:58 AM UTC-4, brend...@gmail.com wrote:
> Similar except I remind myself to dismount any large volumes mounted
> (those can take to run trim against):

^(those can take a lot of time to run trim against):

[Jon deps]

On 3/30/19 1:37 PM, brendan.hoar-Re5J...@public.gmane.org
wrote:

> On Saturday, March 30, 2019 at 9:35:58 AM UTC-4, brend...-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org wrote:
>> Similar except I remind myself to dismount any large volumes mounted
>> (those can take to run trim against):
> ^(those can take a lot of time to run trim against):
>

interesting, I've never thought to trim an AppVM, not sure I understand
your guys language to do it now either :)

btw, with Debian-10 install (sorry if this is off-qubes) it ask
something about restarting services, I said "yes", then it asked
something about installing a new GRUB , I said "no" .....

system will probably work, but just curious if I guessed correctly ?

Tasket, on installing non-ESR Firefox, I see it's available as a
.tar.gz, so I assume one would just stick that in the Debian-10
/usr/sbin Template ..... along with updater service and do manual
updates when cued in the AppVM using the FF browser ??

jon

[Chris Laprise]

On 3/30/19 2:57 PM, Jon deps wrote:
> Tasket, on installing  non-ESR Firefox, I see it's available as a
> .tar.gz,  so I assume one would just stick that in the Debian-10
> /usr/sbin  Template ..... along with updater service and do manual
> updates when cued  in the  AppVM using the  FF browser ??

You could do that, but installing the non-ESR from Debian is easier and
more secure.

[Jon deps]

On 3/30/19 7:23 PM, Chris Laprise wrote:
> On 3/30/19 2:57 PM, Jon deps wrote:
>> Tasket, on installing  non-ESR Firefox, I see it's available as a
>> .tar.gz,  so I assume one would just stick that in the Debian-10
>> /usr/sbin  Template ..... along with updater service and do manual
>> updates when cued  in the  AppVM using the  FF browser ??
>
> You could do that, but installing the non-ESR from Debian is easier and
> more secure.
>

1)
so if I add this :
deb http://http.debian.net/debian unstable main
or
deb http://http.debian.net/debian buster main


to /etc/apt/sources.list



I **don't need to do anything to

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/qubes4.list


for non-ESR



2)
so far seem to work in a test AppVM using "unstable" not sure if
"buster" will keep it current over time ?

[Jon deps]

re: 1) testing it , "buster" won't work must stay as "unstable" ,
but maybe everyone knows this but me :)

not sure what happens when buster becomes "stable" and shouldn't
it be https not http ?

[Jon deps]

final note

installing it manually to /opt then making the ln -s
/opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox is fine but there is not
qubes shortcut and neither refreshing the list nor
qubes-appmenus-sync seems to make a shortcut

it appears in 4.0 there is no longer a manual way to make a shortcut,
so I'm curious how are shortcuts generally generated ? by appearing
in /usr/bin or ?

[awokd]

Jon deps:

> installing it manually to /opt   then making the  ln -s
> /opt/firefox/firefox  /usr/bin/firefox      is fine  but there is not
> qubes shortcut  and  neither refreshing the list   nor
> qubes-appmenus-sync   seems to make a shortcut
>
> it appears in 4.0  there is no longer a manual way to make a shortcut,
> so I'm curious   how are shortcuts generally generated    ? by appearing
> in /usr/bin   or ?

https://www.qubes-os.org/doc/managing-appvm-shortcuts/