How to rollback solus update?

mattiaoki

Recently when updating my solus machine, this has caused my keyboard to not work anymore. As this happened under midterms and I'm a student ive just been using the previous "snapshot" aka when the boot page shows up the lower option of the 2.

I imagine this happened because of a faulty update or a broken package, I tried reversing the update but I just get told that some of the old packages aren't available in the repository anymore. My question is how do i rollback to the snapshot I am currently using so I can perform the update again and hopefully have my machine both up to date and working?

thx in advance

diagnostics0

Perform a rollback on Solus

SilverBird775

IF it boots AND the desktop works somehow, then everything is fine.
IMHO, just leave it for a less busy times. Such things should not be done in a hurry, it may easily disrupt other urgent plans when you need your PC the most.
Just do not update or install anything until are feel ready for an extra geek experience.

As per general rule, do not update your system in midst of your time restrained activity, just postpone the PC tinkering for a less busy times.

Solus is using the rolling updates model, there is no way back in general. You need to get along with the changes somehow and this process of tweaking\hacking may take time.

elfprince

SilverBird775 there is no way back in general

?? Is that so?

SilverBird775

elfprince Yeah, why? If there is some problem you may rollback changes a bit and that's it. It is not a permanent solution in any sense. After the next update attempt, the same problem repeats and you get stuck again. With a good enough skills you may find out the bad package and exclude it from the next update attempt. With the best of your luck the system may keep working just like that. I had to drag out the "openvpn" update once for about half a year until a certain cryptography issue was finally fixed. It was a blind luck it kept working time frozen while everything else kept rolling. But with MESA or kernel twists there no way around, be it the system hangups or other hardware issues. You had to find some workaround or forget about updates and repository existence. There is a slim chance that your specific problem could be fixed automagically in the next update, but... I've never been that lucky.

johano

epogk history at the command line will show a numbered history of eopkg transactions

eopkg --help history will reveal the options relating to history, the option of interest here is --takeback

-t [--takeback] arg : Takeback to the state after the given operation finished

Where arg is the number of the transaction. So say my history shows the last transaction was Operation #2596, and I want to go back to the previous Operation 2595:

sudo eopkg history -t2595

It will then tell you what changes it is about to make, and allow you the chance to accept or cancel

But it sounds like good advice—if you are in the throes of examinations and managing meantime—to leave it to a more propitious occasion

Anyway, HTH and good luck with the exams!

Edit: oops! just see that @diagnostics0 has already pointed you in this direction

elfprince

SilverBird775 I had an impression that Solus allows one to rollback an entire update, not just individual packages.

Harvey

You can rollback an entire update we have always had this feature and documentation on how to do it was linked in the first reply.

The problem is if a package is deprecated and you have that package installed it breaks the ability to rollback. Which is probably why the OP states

I tried reversing the update but I just get told that some of the old packages aren't available in the repository anymore.

mattiaoki

Harvey exactly this, ive looked at the documentation before and tried the eopkg history -t; the issue is once this is run for the update I want to roll back it complains about missing packages that aren't in the repo anymore.

This is probably because I encountered this issue around 2 weeks ago but as I had midterms I didn't attempt to fix it. Now i've finished most of my exams so I tried to rollback but it complains about missing repo packages.

I was thinking that as this is probably a package issue from a faulty update if i update again now maybe the issue will be fixed? idk tho any help is appreciated

Sebastian

In my experience, you can download the deprecated package from https://packages.getsol.us/shannon/, then install the downloaded package with eopkg and then perform the rollback.

Sebastian

Which packages are reported missing?