[gentoo-user] ncurses is gone

[gentoo-user] ncurses is gone

[Alan E. Davis]

Ncurses has disappeared, and the system is dead.  I think it is
unrecoverable.  I had hoped to use a binary package, but for now,
since I shut the machine down, it will not boot.

Is this hopeless?  It happened during an emerge -uDvNa world

Alan

Re: [gentoo-user] ncurses is gone

[Alan McKinnon]

On Monday 06 July 2009 22:21:39 Alan E. Davis wrote:
> Ncurses has disappeared, and the system is dead.  I think it is
> unrecoverable.  I had hoped to use a binary package, but for now,
> since I shut the machine down, it will not boot.
>
> Is this hopeless?  It happened during an emerge -uDvNa world

What are the errors or other relevant output to the console?

-- 
alan dot mckinnon at gmail dot com

[gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[walt]

On 07/06/2009 01:21 PM, Alan E. Davis wrote:
> Ncurses has disappeared, and the system is dead.  I think it is
> unrecoverable.  I had hoped to use a binary package, but for now,
> since I shut the machine down, it will not boot.
>
> Is this hopeless?  It happened during an emerge -uDvNa world

It's never hopeless unless the hard disk is damaged, e.g. from a
head crash or similar catastrophe.  The important thing is to avoid
trying random things without knowing what you're doing. You can
turn a simple recovery into a hopeless mess that way.

I find that I can usually get myself out of a 'hopeless' mess just
by downloading a live gentoo boot CD and using that to install a
recent gentoo snapshot.  You need a second (working) computer to
do that, of course.  (Everyone should have as many computers as
possible for exactly that reason :o)

Meanwhile, more info would help, as the others have already said.

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[Alan E. Davis]

thank you.  And your comment was duly noted about trying random things.

When I boot the system, the following message follows (after one other
line) after INIT: version 2.86 booting

/sbin/rc: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5:
cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

Alan

 "...can the human soul be glimpsed through a microscope? Maybe, but
you'd definitely need one of those very good ones with two eyepieces."

    -- Woody Allen, quoted by B. A. Palevitz



On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 8:43 AM, walt<w41ter@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 07/06/2009 01:21 PM, Alan E. Davis wrote:
>>
>> Ncurses has disappeared, and the system is dead.  I think it is
>> unrecoverable.  I had hoped to use a binary package, but for now,
>> since I shut the machine down, it will not boot.
>>
>> Is this hopeless?  It happened during an emerge -uDvNa world
>
> It's never hopeless unless the hard disk is damaged, e.g. from a
> head crash or similar catastrophe.  The important thing is to avoid
> trying random things without knowing what you're doing. You can
> turn a simple recovery into a hopeless mess that way.
>
> I find that I can usually get myself out of a 'hopeless' mess just
> by downloading a live gentoo boot CD and using that to install a
> recent gentoo snapshot.  You need a second (working) computer to
> do that, of course.  (Everyone should have as many computers as
> possible for exactly that reason :o)
>
> Meanwhile, more info would help, as the others have already said.
>
>
>

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[Sebastian Beßler]

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Alan E. Davis schrieb:
> thank you.  And your comment was duly noted about trying random things.
> 
> When I boot the system, the following message follows (after one other
> line) after INIT: version 2.86 booting
> 
> /sbin/rc: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5:
> cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.

Use a live-linux from usb-stick or CD, mount your root, chroot into it
and give revdep-rebuild a try. That should help.

Greetings

Sebastian


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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[Alan E. Davis]

Thank you for your response, Sebastian:

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 4:37 PM, Sebastian
Beßler<webmaster@darkmetatron.de> wrote:

> Use a live-linux from usb-stick or CD, mount your root, chroot into it
> and give revdep-rebuild a try. That should help.

I think you are telling me to use Gentoo Live CD specifically, and
mount my installed "/" (on /mnt/gentoo?), chroot into it (as described
in the install docs) and run revdeb-rebuild.

Is revdep-rebuild part of the live cd?

I'll try it.  Thank you VERY much.  I have installed Ubuntu, but these
steps will save my having to deal with that.

Alan

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 17:08:01 +1000, Alan E. Davis wrote:

> I think you are telling me to use Gentoo Live CD specifically, and
> mount my installed "/" (on /mnt/gentoo?), chroot into it (as described
> in the install docs) and run revdeb-rebuild.
> 
> Is revdep-rebuild part of the live cd?

It doesn't matter. Once you have chrooted you are using software
installed in the chroot. 

However, it may not be possible to use revdep-rebuild without ncurses, in
which case you need some kind soul with a similar setup to provide you
with a binary package of ncurses, which you can unpack into your root
directory.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

Locutous for Pontiac: Excitment is irrelivent.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[Alan E. Davis]

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 8:15 PM, Neil Bothwick<neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
>
> It doesn't matter. Once you have chrooted you are using software
> installed in the chroot.
>
> However, it may not be possible to use revdep-rebuild without ncurses, in
> which case you need some kind soul with a similar setup to provide you
> with a binary package of ncurses, which you can unpack into your root
> directory.
>

This is exactly what happened.  I used the systemrescuecd, chrooted,
and, lo and behold, the same error message was coming up.  What I
might be able to do is symlink to libncursesw ?  Don't know whether
it's even on the system.

On the other hand, with a binary ncurses, I could see that might work.
 Is there a binary repo?  (Back to sabayon?).  I suppose I need to
know the exact version.  Does it matter which use flags it was
compiled with?

Thank you!

Alan

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[John covici]

on Tuesday 07/07/2009 Alan E. Davis(lngndvs@gmail.com) wrote
 > On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 8:15 PM, Neil Bothwick<neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
 > >
 > > It doesn't matter. Once you have chrooted you are using software
 > > installed in the chroot.
 > >
 > > However, it may not be possible to use revdep-rebuild without ncurses, in
 > > which case you need some kind soul with a similar setup to provide you
 > > with a binary package of ncurses, which you can unpack into your root
 > > directory.
 > >
 > 
 > This is exactly what happened.  I used the systemrescuecd, chrooted,
 > and, lo and behold, the same error message was coming up.  What I
 > might be able to do is symlink to libncursesw ?  Don't know whether
 > it's even on the system.
 > 
 > On the other hand, with a binary ncurses, I could see that might work.
 >  Is there a binary repo?  (Back to sabayon?).  I suppose I need to
 > know the exact version.  Does it matter which use flags it was
 > compiled with?

I wonder if you say  -C and -P would it still use ncurses since you
are turning off color and progress indications?

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici@ccs.covici.com

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[Alan E. Davis]

As I type, the system is booting, after untarring a Sabayon package of
ncurses into the / partition, mounted in a parallel ubuntu setup.

The system has booted, and I am typing this message from it.

Thank you everyone.

Alan

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[Neil Bothwick]

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On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 21:10:23 +1000, Alan E. Davis wrote:

> As I type, the system is booting, after untarring a Sabayon package of
> ncurses into the / partition, mounted in a parallel ubuntu setup.

Now you need to emerge the proper Gentoo package to get your database
consistent with what is installed.


-- 
Neil Bothwick

MS-DOS: if you believe in a flat Earth, this is the OS for you.

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Re: [gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[Alan E. Davis]

Yes.  It's working.  It emerged without complaint.

Thank you for the useful advice.  I am very pleased that this system
is working now.


Alan Davis

 "...can the human soul be glimpsed through a microscope? Maybe, but
you'd definitely need one of those very good ones with two eyepieces."

    -- Woody Allen, quoted by B. A. Palevitz



On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:07 PM, Neil Bothwick<neil@digimed.co.uk> wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 21:10:23 +1000, Alan E. Davis wrote:
>
>> As I type, the system is booting, after untarring a Sabayon package of
>> ncurses into the / partition, mounted in a parallel ubuntu setup.
>
> Now you need to emerge the proper Gentoo package to get your database
> consistent with what is installed.
>
>
> --
> Neil Bothwick
>
> MS-DOS: if you believe in a flat Earth, this is the OS for you.
>

Re: [gentoo-user] Re: ncurses is gone

[David Relson]

On Tue, 7 Jul 2009 13:54:52 +1000
Alan E. Davis wrote:

> thank you.  And your comment was duly noted about trying random
> things.
> 
> When I boot the system, the following message follows (after one other
> line) after INIT: version 2.86 booting
> 
> /sbin/rc: error while loading shared libraries: libncurses.so.5:
> cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.
> 
> Alan

Might you just be missing a symlink?  I have the following on my system:

lrwxrwxrwx ... /lib/libncurses.so -> libncurses.so.5  
lrwxrwxrwx ... /lib/libncurses.so.5 -> libncurses.so.5.6   
-rwxr-xr-x ... /lib/libncurses.so.5.6

HTH,

David