fails to uninstall

[Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn]

When /etc/init.d/gdm stop returns nonzero, then gdm won't uninstall. Perhaps this is intentional, but if so then dpkg needs a "--force servicehalting" or something. As it is I delete /etc/init.d/gdm with "sudo rm" and was then able to uninstall.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks for your bug. What version of Ubuntu do you use? What message do you get? Uninstalling gdm after moving /etc/init.d/gdm away works fine on my dapper installation

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Your bug lacks information we would need to investigate further. We are now going to close the bug - please reopen if you have more information at hand.

[Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn (zooko)]

I don't understand what more information is needed. Of course, if one moves /etc/init.d/gdm aside then it works. This is the same thing as I reported in my original report: I removed /etc/init.d/gdm and it worked.

The problem is that the gdm package cannot be uninstalled in the case that "/etc/init.d/gdm stop" returns non-zero. Therefore, if someone has a broken configuration in which "/etc/init.d/gdm stop" returns non-zero, they cannot uninstall. Since uninstalling is the simplest and safest route for a user to fix a broken system, this is a Catch-22. Only a power-user who knows how to do safely do things like sudo rm system files can proceed.

There are some reasonable ways to fix this:

1. Make it so that "/etc/init.d/gdm stop" returns zero even if there is an error.
2. Make it so that dpkg will remove/purge the package even if "/etc/init.d/gdm stop" returns non-zero.
3. Make it so that "/etc/init.d/gdm stop" never encounters an error.
4. Make it so that nobody ever needs to uninstall gdm when it is in a broken state.

Just kidding about #3 and #4 -- it would be better to do #1 or #2.

Regards,

Zooko

[Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn (zooko)]

Setting Status back to "Unconfirmed". I hope my explanation is helpful.

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Posted by Sebastien Bacher at 2006-02-18 17:58:42 CET:

"Thanks for your bug. What version of Ubuntu do you use? What message do you get? Uninstalling gdm after moving /etc/init.d/gdm away works fine on my dapper installation"

[Zooko Wilcox-O'Hearn (zooko)]

I use lots of versions of Ubuntu. The version that was in use that day was probably a subset of Dapper circa 2006-01-22. The version of gdm was probably 2.13.0.5-0ubuntu2 (I'm infering this was the related bug report https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+source/gdm/+bug/29389).

The message that I got was from dpkg informing me that it was unable to uninstall the package due to an error. The error was that /etc/init.d/gdm stop returned non-zero.

Moving /etc/init.d/gdm away is different than having /etc/init.d/gdm return non-zero. The former works, the latter doesn't.

Does this make sense?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for the comments, I'll fix that with next upload

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

This upload fixes the issue:

 gdm (2.14.4-0ubuntu1) dapper; urgency=low
 .
   * New upstream versions:
     - fix segfault when clicking on "Username" (Ubuntu: #31982)
     - fix "Show Actions Menu" section in gdmsetup so it appears when both
       "Plain" and "Themed" style is chosen (Ubuntu: #35835)
   * debian/control:
    - Build-Depends on libdmx-dev
    - Depends on librsvg2-common
   * debian/init:
    - use "--oknodo" option
   * debian/patches/02_default_config.patch:
     - updated, fix PreFetchProgram key (Ubuntu: #40984)
     debian/patches/09_desktop.patch:
     - updated, don't use startup notification, gksu already does that
       (Ubuntu: #40974)
   * debian/patches/02_default_config.patch:
     - don't list the configuration item by default (Ubuntu: #14585)
   * debian/patches/16_configure_menu_item.patch:
     - drop the configure option from gdmsetup it's not sudo friendly
   * debian/prerm:
     - don't break the uninstall if stopping gdm doesn't work (Ubuntu: #29390)