[paul1149]

While dealing with broken packages and many old kernels, I made the mistake of using the -F Autoremove command, and on rebooting saw that I had lost most of the drivers to an Acer laptop: the video, audio and network was absent, and possibly others. Going to LL's Drivers utility showed nothing available. A Synaptics search for "driver" also produced nothing.


I know what to do in Windows - go to Acer.com and find the driver using a machine with a connection, download to a USB stick and install on the broken machine. But how does one do this with Linux? I ended up reinstalling LL from scratch. That's not a very big deal, but I would like to know a better way to deal with missing drivers.


Thanks.

[Moltke]

Hi [member=5287]paul1149[/member]

the video, audio and network was absent

So, you had no desktop?  Just curious,  Did you have to install these drivers when installing LL the first time and now again? To my understanding, Linux install every device if recongnized by default right away out of the box, am I wrong? Since Linux drivers are open source and provided along with whatever distro one chooses, I thought this kind of things couldn't happen, at least not in a Windows fashion. I think you deleted some important folder(s) containing those drivers. Someone correct me if I'm wrong please. I'm not expert and can't provide a proper answer to your question, but it called my attention because like I said, I didn't think that was possible, unless accidentally one deleted drivers' directory/folder. That's the only thing I can think of for that to happen.

[paul1149]

The autoremove -F command must have wiped the drivers. They had been working fine.

[trinidad]

Autoremove running on some newer kernels will not detect some older kernel dependencies correctly. This has been an issue for a while. Just don't use it, as it will delete and and/or ruin some updated files in unpredictable ways, or at least backup first if you do use it. Don't know what you were doing but Lite Tweaks is safer for removing old kernels. For applications use uninstall from synaptic.

TC

[paul1149]

Yes, I probably won't be using autoremove again. I had three kernels with broken dependencies, which were preventing anything from installing. Neither Lite Tweaks nor apt-get would remove or reinstall them correctly. I was getting the error, "out of space". I saw a post here that gave the manual dpkg commands to remove some of them to make space, and that worked. At that point I should have gone back to Tweaks or apt-get to finish the removals, but autoremove looked cool.

[Moltke]

The autoremove -F command must have wiped the drivers. They had been working fine.

For the sake of learning and avoiding this kind of things to happen, would you mind telling which broken packages were you dealing with, if possible, please? Since your thread called my attention I ran into googling "recover lost drivers ubuntu" and "drivers directory location in Ubuntu" For the "recover lost drivers" most of the proposed solutions were reinstalling, others suggested booting into a live cd and trying to download drivers from there. Drivers are located in /lib/modules and /sys/modules/ so I guess that whatever procedure you were performing somehow broke/deleted those. I can only think of two possible ways for recovering lost drivers or any other important files/configurations:
1. -Create a system restore point with systemback, so in theory one could be able of restoring the system to a state where drivers are still present.

2. - Use some app like aptik to backup any important files like drivers and configurations. The advantage of aptik is that one can save to an external storage like a flash drive or a usb hdd, so in case systemback way doesn't work there's a plan B.

I actually think of a third solution, but I'm not sure whether it'd work or not; I think open a terminal and running

Code:

$ sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

would do the trick, but I'm really not sure and have not intention to try this 8)     

[paul1149]

The broken packages were kernels -101 and -105, as I recall. I did see the proposed solution to boot to a live CD and download from there. I tried it, but saw no way to download drivers. Maybe if I knew where they are stored they could be accessed, and used if they are in package form. I didn't think of that. I wasn't sure of which drivers I would need, so at that point I went ahead and reinstalled.

There was no systemback or other backup available. I did try the apt-get update/upgrade command, and that is the one that faulted out for lack of disk space.

[Moltke]

Thanks for the reply. So you were removing old kernels, good to know. What do you mean by

There was no systemback or other backup available

was it because you hadn't created one? You could try aptik, so in case - hope no but you know better safe than sorry -  systemback backups aren't available you have a plan B by saving those important files/configurations in a flash drive or a usb hdd. Aptik is in the repositories, you can install it by opening a terminal and typing

Code:

$ sudo apt-get install aptik

[paul1149]

Thanks. I thought I had the ppa base covered with BackInTime, but I don't see it there now. Aptik sounds like a great utility, but it seems to have been withdrawn. No files on Launchpad, or in the repositories, apt-get doesn't find it, and the links at the teejeetech site are dead.

Ah yes. Here's how to back up ppas with backintime. It's not in the interface:

user-callback and other PlugIns

How to backup Debian/Ubuntu Package selection?

There is a user-callback example which will backup all package selections, sources and repository keys which are necessary to reinstall exactly the same packages again. It will even backup whether a package was installed manually or automatically because of dependencies.

Download the script, copy it to ~/.config/backintime/user-callback and make it executable with chmod 755 ~/.config/backintime/user-callback

It will run every time a new snapshot is taken. Make sure to include ~/.apt-backup.

I'm finding backintime very good. Not quite a replacement for all of systemback's functions, but very good and very easy to use. Not sure if it's been discussed here.

[Moltke]

Yes, you're right about aptik not being in launchpad, I just checked and it isn't there. Sorry about that and for saying it was in the repositories when it wasn't, I didn't remember but you have to add Teejee's PPA first in order to install it via apt. 

Code:

sudo apt-add-repository -y ppa:teejee2008/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install aptik

I found this info too https://medium.com/@teejeetech/aptik-ng-...f0eafd1333 It seems a new version is in development at the moment and it's supposed to be officially released in January.