I so don't know what I'm doing. Broke darktable, maybe ubuntu too

Software darktable
1

I’m running 22.04LTS and darktable 4.6.1

I wanted to add Sigma SPP under Wine. Read up on what to do, then installed it. But kept getting these errors saying I needed wine32. Tried to install that and got a whole bunch of errors about unmet dependencies. Tried to fix that following tips online and ended up breaking app-get updates completely. So then I decided to upgrade to 23.04 which I managed to do (I think).

I got SPP v5.5 working for a bit under Wine somehow. But now darktable no longer works and in trying to fix that I broke SPP again. Something to do with PPAs maybe, so I deleted it and SPP to go back to scratch. But somehow I reverted to darktable 4.6.0 which won’t start. And now I can’t update back to 4.6.1 because it keeps saying that 4.6.0 is the latest. Even if I go to the darktable website and try and install 4.7 master branch, it pops up the snap store with 4.6.0.

I have no idea what I have accomplished (other than destroying darktable, installing then losing SPP and probably wrecking my Ubuntu install as well.

I need a way forward…

p.s.

Attempts to upgrade to 23.10 produce an error “EFI system partition not usable. Your ESP is not mounted at boot/eft”

2

You probably can’t start 4.6.0 because your database already has 4.6.1 and you can’t go backward.

Not sure about the other stuff, but I’d make sure your efi partition is good or you won’t be able to boot.

Make a backup now if you do not have one already!

3

A back up of what?

4

Anything you don’t want to lose incase your system won’t boot again or you have to do a fresh install to fix it.

5

My data is on a different partition from o/s.

I wanted to get ubuntu up to date to 23.10 in the hope 4.6.1 will suddenly reappear as a selectable version in the software store.

I’m trying to work out what:

means.

Googling hints that the boot/efi is not being mounted. However, when I use Gparted to examine the partitions is says EFI System Partition Mounted on /mnt/8B6D-5828
which implies it is mounted. In which case why does the upgrade to 23.10 bomb out with the message:

Calculating the changes

EFI System Partition (ESP) not usable

Your EFI System Partition (ESP) is not mounted at /boot/efi. Please
ensure that it is properly configured and try again.

Restoring original system state

If I type sudo mount /boot/efi it says “can’t find it in /etc/fstab” which suggests it wants an entry in fstab.

I don’t understand enough to work out what all this means. I also don’t understand if the inability to update to 23.10 is the same problem that is stopping me update to dt 4.6.1. Annoyingly, I can’t remember exactly how I updated from 4.6.0 to 4.6.1 in the first place so I can’t just repeat the steps.

Linux can be frustrating if you’re not a guru…

6

Yeah its not mounted in the right place, it needs to be mounted at /boot/efi. Under /mnt doesn’t make sense.

7

Ok, I added a line to fstab. This seemed to fix the upgrade to 23.10 problem and i have now upgraded successfully.

Now I have another problem :slight_smile:

Looking in the app store I can see there is now darktable 4.6.1 and I can install it and it works. But…
…it appears as if this is a completely fresh install that knows nothing about my existing settings or catalogue. So I removed it. Instead I got the install file from the darktable site

I’ve tried 4.6.1 and the master branch files using the command line code snippets:

echo ‘deb /repositories/graphics:/darktable/xUbuntu_23.10 - openSUSE Download /’ | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/graphics:darktable.list
curl -fsSL https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/graphics:darktable/xUbuntu_23.10/Release.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/graphics_darktable.gpg > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt install darktable

They appear to install fine. But when I launch, the program crashes on start up with a segmentation fault a great big core dump listing.

8

You probably installed the snap package.

9

I think you’re likely right. I find these different methods of installing applications under Linux confusing.

I’m going to assume that the original install I been using for years isn’t snap. But how do you tell in advance? And how do you know how to upgrade using the right method?

When darktable gets a new release, what is the correct method of install? I’m fairly sure (but not absolutely sure) that originally (years ago) I installed from a 3rd party PPA. But I can’t actually remember how I installed all the various v3 and v4 versions. Was it from a PPA, was it direct from the website? No idea. I do a lot of messing around with Ubuntu following advice I find online but I have to say I don’t think conceptually I have a clue what I’m doing. When I get it to work, it’s a miracle!

So, at the minute I guess what I want to know is the steps required to get back to a stable working install under 23.10. Can I do that by downloading an install file from the darktable site? And can I retain all the previous settings and catalogue without losing anything? And do I have clear out stuff I’ve installed that isn’t working at the moment. And how do I do that?

A lot of questions, I know. Sorry :frowning:

UPDATE: Apparently “$ snap search darktable” will tell me what darktable version is available as Snap. I get:

darktable 4.6.1 sergiusens - Virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers

Which seems to confirm that 4.6.1 in the Ubuntu Software Centre is a Snap.

$ apt search darktable produces:

darktable/unknown 4.7.0~git870.a3140d3d-1+11523.1 ppc64el

darktable-tools-basecurve/unknown 4.7.0~git870.a3140d3d-1+11523.1 ppc64el

arktable-tools-noise/unknown 4.7.0~git870.a3140d3d-1+11523.1 ppc64el

Not sure why there are 3 separate things, but the first one suggests 4.70 is available as a whatever you call an app that isn’t a Snap. I guess this is what I need?

If I try “sudo apt install darktable”

I get:

Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree… Done
Reading state information… Done
darktable is already the newest version (4.7.0~git870.a3140d3d-1+11523.1).
0 to upgrade, 0 to newly install, 0 to remove and 0 not to upgrade.

Which I would guess means 4.7.0 is already installed.

If I run darktable from the launcher item, I get a spinning circle for a while, then nothing. if I run darktable from the command line, I get a core dump.

I found this error log darktable bt_xxxxx.txt file (there are lots of them xxxxx stands for the various numbers).

Is there a way to upload the file?

10

I’ve completely removed snap from my machine to reduce the confusion:

Also, I install everything using the command-line (check out apt and dpkg).

11

Same here, I also completely banned snap, AppImage, flatpack (and others) from my system. Exclusively installing with apt and/or dpkg keeps things compatible and reliable. darktable debian packages are available here for example.

12

See update to my previous post above with reference to error log file.

13

That’s how I installed the current version of darktable using:

echo ‘deb /repositories/graphics:/darktable/xUbuntu_23.10 - openSUSE Download /’ | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/graphics:darktable.list
curl -fsSL https://download.opensuse.org/repositories/graphics:darktable/xUbuntu_23.10/Release.key | gpg --dearmor | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/graphics_darktable.gpg > /dev/null
sudo apt update
sudo apt install darktable

However, this crashes on start up producing a segmentation error and core dump. I have the backtrace file but I don’t know what to do with these.

The first line of the backtrace says: “this is darktable 4.7.0~git870.a3140d3d-1+11523.1 reporting a segfault:”

The same thing happened with the 4.6.1 version which is why I then tried the master 4.7 version. I’m not sure whether or not it is now possible to go back to the 4.6.1 or not.

14

The repository you installed this way is clearly version 4.6.1. But starting darktable you get response of development version 4.7.0~git870.a3140d3d. You have (at least) two different versions of dt installed. Try to find out where your different dt versions are installed and try to start dt from the commandline. See darktable 4.6 user manual - darktable how to do that. Be aware : if you updated your databases to version 4.7 you can’t switch back to 4.6.1. Use (version 4.6) backups of your databases in that case.

15

I did start from the command line to get that backtrace file. Is there a way to be specific about which version I want to start from the command line?

Is there a way of removing both versions and re-installing without destroying my configuration/catalogue?

I saved a copy of my v4.6.1 library to my desktop just to be safe. Do I need to overwrite the current version with that backup?

UPDATE: $ darktable --version reports 4.7.0

16

apt-cache policy darktable

Shows you the dt version(s) installed and available via apt

sudo apt remove --purge darktable

removes the application last installed with apt (seems to be dev version 4.7 regarding your last post) without touching your personal settings and databases in ~/.config/darktable

17

Thanks.

I used the --purge option followed by the autoremove.

Now when I type darktable it says “No such file or directory”.

Can I now re-install 4.6.1 from the darktable website install page?

Do I need to get rid of the ver 4.7.0 library?

18

What do you get from

apt-cache policy darktable

now.

If you want to continue with 4.6.1 : Yes

19

$ apt-cache policy darktable
darktable:
Installed: (none)
Candidate: 4.7.0~git870.a3140d3d-1+11523.1
Version table:
4.7.0~git870.a3140d3d-1+11523.1 500
500 /repositories/graphics:/darktable:/master/xUbuntu_23.10 - openSUSE Download Packages
4.6.1-1.1+74.1 500
500 /repositories/graphics:/darktable/xUbuntu_23.10 - openSUSE Download Packages
4.4.2-1ubuntu1 500
500 Index of /ubuntu mantic/universe amd64 Packages

20

sudo apt install darktable

would install version 4.7 ( don’t do this ! )

sudo apt install <package name>=<version>

should do the job you want. You want version 4.6.1xxx from OpenSUSE repository.