Installing mongodb package via aptitude destroys Cinnamon install

[Allan Crooks]

I've been using an install script to prepare my machine for development work for various Linux Mint installs - but using it for the latest version of Mint (Petra) seems to break Cinnamon.

Here's how to reproduce it:
 1) Install Linux Mint 16 Petra (I've been using the 64 Bit Cinnamon edition).
 2) Once installed, run "sudo aptitude install -y mongodb".

The mongodb packages seems to have some base conflicts with Cinnamon in some way - and it warns you that it intends to uninstall a lot of existing packages, including cinnamon. My script was intended for configuring my machine in an unattended way - and so the installation of mongodb triggered the uninstallation of Cinnamon and permanently broke the DE.

It seems that using apt-get doesn't trigger it, but aptitude does - I thought that aptitude was semantically equivalent to apt-get, so don't understand what's causing this.

If you install it via apt-get and then remove it in the same way, then installing via aptitude doesn't trigger the uninstallation of Cinnamon. I've not experienced this in either Mint 14 or Mint 15.

[Allan Crooks (amcone)]

This affects the latest version of Ubuntu too. The default proposal by aptitude is to uninstall a lot of packages - in Ubuntu's case, this includes ubuntu-desktop.

[Allan Crooks (amcone)]

Perhaps I'm wrong, but running "sudo apt-get update" seemed to have an effect such that the suggested installation path doesn't require any packages to be removed...

[Vlad Orlov (monsta)]

The latest versions of aptitude are known for being out of their mind [1][2], so I highly recommend to forget about it and use apt-get like most people do :)

[1] http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=199&t=150622
[2] http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=198&t=151930

[Axel Beckert (xtaran)]

aptitude and apt-get are not equivalent. Aptitude remembers what you wanted to install or uninstall and it tries to get to that state again. So if you installed software with aptitude, but remove them by other means, aptitude may still remember that you previously wanted that software installed. (This is not a bug but a aptitude-only feature and you should not mix aptitude and apt-get for that reason unless you know what you do.)

For unattended installation or unattended package-management see aptitude-robot or pkgsync (which IIRC both use aptitude and not apt-get).

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

So...why does mongodb conflict with cinnamon? It sort of suggests the bug might be with mongodb, if this is a library version issue of some sort

[Vlad Orlov (monsta)]

It doesn't.

[chemicalfan (mike-lumsden)]

So.....is this even a bug? If so, where is the bug?

[Vlad Orlov (monsta)]

The bug is that aptitude violates the principle of least astonishment by doing some things that the apt-get users don't expect.

[Joseph Yennaco (joseph-yennaco)]

I got my Linux Mint 16 into this same state without ever touching aptitude or mongodb. It seemed to occur after some regular updates, I don't do anything out of the ordinary with my Mint install, but when I logged back in I got the blank screen with the "LM" icon floating in the middle. I can ALT-LEFT and get to terminal, run "sudo mdm", and get to the login screen, however immediately after logging in I get "Session Failed" with a detailed error message:

"cinnamon-session-cinnamon" not found; falling back to default session.
localuser:jyennaco being added to access control list
Script for cjkv started at run_im.
Script for default started at run_im.
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Failed to connect to the VirtualBox kernel service
Script for cjkv started at run_im.
Script for default started at run_im.
x-session-manager[7996]: WARNING: Unable to find required component 'cinnamon'
x-session-manager[7996]: WARNING: Unable to find required component 'cinnamon-screensaver'
x-session-manager[7996]: WARNING: Unable to find required component 'nemo-autostart'

(note also at this time by Wifi wasn't working, I had to plug in. I saw another forum where someone had these same 2 seemingly different problems)

Naturally form the terminal I ran:

sudo apt-get --purge remove cinnamon && sudo apt-get install cinnamon
sudo apt-get install cinnamon-screensaver
sudo apt-get install nemo

After rebooting I was able to log in using "sudo mdm" and logging in, I was got to my desktop! However, cinnamon still does not start on a normal boot without sudo mdm.

Please advise! Thanks!

[Vlad Orlov (monsta)]

*sigh* have to close this as invalid because: 1) not a Linux Mint bug and 2) aptitude guys refuse to acknowledge their logic is a bug to the unsuspecting apt-get users.