Hi Martijn,
On Wed, Feb 12, 2020 at 06:28:51PM +0200, Martijn Grooten wrote:
> > What is the output of:
> >
> > $ cat /etc/debian_version
>
> 10.2
Right, so it is at least partially upgraded to Debian 10.
Just picking on the first few packages I see…
> ||/ Name Version Architecture Description
> +++-==================================-================================-============-===============================================================================
[…]
> ii alpine 2.00+dfsg-6+squeeze1 i386 Text-based email client, friendly for novices but powerful
This one is from Debian 6 but maybe is just because you've
constantly upgraded from there.
> ii apache2 2.4.25-3+deb9u7 i386 Apache HTTP Server
> ii apache2-bin 2.4.25-3+deb9u7 i386 Apache HTTP Server (modules and other binary files)
> ii apache2-data 2.4.25-3+deb9u7 all Apache HTTP Server (common files)
> ii apache2-utils 2.4.25-3+deb9u7 i386 Apache HTTP Server (utility programs for web servers)
The above set from Debian 9…
> ii apt 1.4.9 i386 commandline package manager
> ii apt-utils 1.4.9 i386 package management related utility programs
The above are from Debian 9…
> ii base-files 10.3+deb10u2 i386 Debian base system miscellaneous files
And that one is from Debian 10, so again suggests that Debian 10 was
partially installed. It's not as bad as I feared though; you
definitely do have some packages from Debian 10. Some really crucial
ones are still from Debian 9 though. e.g. dpkg and apt.
I think Kamal was probably correct in suggesting that you stopped
getting kernel updates when the kernel package name changed and have
since been stuck on an older kernel.
The need for a more modern kernel has probably caused the upgrade
from Debian 9 to Debian 10 to fail so it's only partially gone
through.
To be honest as you ideally also want to go to 64-bit quite soon, I
think I would recommend asking for a new account in which you can
install a clean Debian 10 and port all your things over across a
period of up to 2 weeks for free:
https://tools.bitfolk.com/wiki/Migrating_to_a_new_VPS
If you didn't want to do that but instead wanted to try to fix this
in place, I suppose what I would do is:
1. Install the kernel from Debian 10 by doing "sudo apt install
linux-image-686-pae" (this is a virtual package which at the
moment should also pull in the real kernel package
"linux-image-4.19.0-8-686-pae")
2. Check with update-grub that it finds it and that it's first in
the boot order
3. Reboot into it.
4. Complete your upgrade by doing "sudo apt dist-upgrade"
The thing is that quite a lot of packages are going to be upgraded
and there's no way to stop that happening because it will also
happen when you do the "sudo apt --fix-broken install" that it might
want you to do first.
It will probably go okay but is likely to be a lengthy process and
some software might need reconfiguring. So I wouldn't try it unless I
had some time to spare to do it all in one go.
Maybe it ends up being simple, but on the other hand it might also
fight you. It knows already that the package database is
inconsistent, and the --fix-broken will try to fix that by
installing the dependencies it thinks it needs, but possibly some of
those will need a newer kernel so won't install, and you get stuck.
It could involve going to:
https://packages.debian.org/buster/linux-image-4.19.0-8-686-pae
then following the download links to:
http://ftp.uk.debian.org/debian/pool/main/l/linux-signed-i386/linux-image-4.19.0-8-686-pae_4.19.98-1_i386.deb
downloading that and force installing it with dpkg -i. That then
may fail because of missing dependencies, so you'd have to download
the dependencies too, and add them to the dpkg -i line. Could be
quite hairy.
If you do complete the above steps you'd then finally want to reboot
again to make sure everything starts cleanly.
I would also recommend editing /etc/apt/sources.list and replacing
every instance of "stable" with "buster". Otherwise, when Debian 11
("bullseye") is released the very next time you try to install
something it will try to install the bullseye version. It is better
to plan the time when you will do a major release upgrade.
If you'd like to go with the new account route then just drop
support@??? an email with the information requested in the
article.
Cheers,
Andy
--
https://bitfolk.com/ -- No-nonsense VPS hosting
