Hello everyone, this is my 1st post here!


After a BIOS upgrade on my Acer laptop, a major regression was introduced, screwing up my power management regarding suspension and hibernation.

The last Liquorix kernel that worked well was 3.17-2.dmz.1-liquorix-amd64 but I cannot find any way to install it again.

I have deleted the /usr/src files, so I don't have the sources to reinstall DKMS when I upgrade Virtualbox, meaning I'm stuck.


Can anyone please tell me where can I download the .deb files from?


Thank you so much!
Bruno
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Why are you removing a kernel before confirming that the new one fully works? That's' a very bad practice, you should keep at least 2 old versions always, one that is known to fully work, one older one, but not current, that seems to work, but you aren't sure, and the current one, if you run the current. This is particularly relevant on laptops, I have had to stick to a certain kernel version for up to a year because of suspend issues, for example, I keep trying the new ones as they come out, and once one works, I keep it, but keep the last good one always as well, no matter what. A kernel takes about 120 mB of installed space, it's nothing.

If you use this practice always, you will never hit this issue again. See the thread right next to this one, someone from mepis posted their lists of liquorix deb.

techpatterns.com/forums/about2427.html
main.mepis-deb.org/mepiscr/testrepo/pool/test/l/linux-liquorix/
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Thank you so much for your prompt reply, techAdmin. Also, thanks for your recommendations.

I always have a couple of backup kernels installed on this system, as well another OS for emergencies.

When I've upgraded the Liquorix kernel, the linux-headers-liquorix-amd64 and the linux-image-liquorix-amd64 were also upgraded (with no chance to roll back since the old versions are not in the repo).
I didn't remove the working kernel, but when the packages were updated, my power management got screwed again and I didn't manage to fix it, even by reinstalling the old kernel. BTW, thanks for the link!

So my solution was to reinstall a working backup with the old kernel but with the related /usr/src/ files deleted. I've managed to retrieve them back from the files you've linked me to on main.mepis-deb.org and with this I was able to update Virtualbox and rebuild the DKMS kernel modules.

To prevent unwanted braking updates, Virtualbox and the Liquorix kernel packages are blocked from automatic updates.

All is working well now and a new backup has been made. ;)


Once more, thank you so much for your help, techAdmin. Should I mark this topic as [solved] or something? :)
Bruno
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Hi Bruno,

It's unfortunate that the latest kernel breaks your suspension and hibernation. ACPI is a tricky thing to get right since most laptops and their BIOS are only tested with Windows, and Windows has a loose interpretation of the ACPI specs. This leads the ACPI developers on Linux to throw in quirks to emulate the compatibility with Windows... but they don't always get it right.

You should submit a bug report on bugzilla.kernel.org if you have any free time. It may take a while but a kernel developer will get around to asking you questions.

Anyway, I marked this thread as solved.
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Also, when using dkms with non distribution kernels, which is in my opinion a bad idea, I would NOT use the kernel image/header metapackages, I never do that, and never have issues with things like vbox, which I also don't use from the repos, I use the version directly from oracle/vbox.

dkms works well when you use the distribution kernel, vbox, non free driver, etc, packages, but it can be totally erratic when used with third party kernels, since you may run a newer kernel that, as you saw, may break stuff.

to me it's an either or, either use all distribution packages with dkms, OR don't use dkms and metapackages. I've followed this strategy for almost a decade now and it works, that's why smxi is the way it is.
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Actually, DKMS works perfectly fine. It's only when you upgrade to a new kernel and the sources don't support the version you're using will they break.

In fact, because of the nature of updates for Liqourix, I would recommend using DKMS sources when possible. On installation of a new kernel or source, all the active kernels have a module built and installed for you. This is important if you use certain modules frequently, like Virtual Box, nVidia, and other DKMS modules required to get your work done.

EDIT: DKMS support mostly applies to Ubuntu. You can configure add PPAs where the maintainer actively and quickly updates the sources as new upstream packages are built. I've had good luck using Liquorix + xorg-edgers + nvidia packages on Ubuntu 14.10. It just works, I don't have to worry about it, and my respective packages are all up to date, all the time.

I've also been using DKMS sources for VirtualBox + nVidia on Debian Unstable as well on my primary system. It works very well - surprisingly well. It must have only been recent that DKMS has matured or I've just been out of the loop, but I do remember when DKMS was unreliable, slow, and prone to breakages that required expert surgery to fix.
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It's actually pure coincidence that it's working now in debian sid/testing, it's been in freeze for a few months now, so you can unfortunately make exactly zero conclusions about dkms in sid/testing until new stable is released, and sid/testing are freed again.

Generally it's the case that one or another thing, like nvidia, vbox, particularly fglrx, fails for months until a new version is released.

trust me o this, I've followed it for years now, feature freeze time of course everything is inert and things like drivers kernels etc work.

Also, there's times when nvidia misses a series of support releases for kernels, that happens all the time, then new kernels will fail, or will need patches, etc, it's also just chance that nvidia and the kernel for the last few releases have been ok.

And of course, there's the legacy drivers...
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Interestingly, that's where I identified DKMS shined in my setup. On my Inspiron 1420 laptop (with a Geforce 8400m GS), the only way I knew that nvidia was updating their legacy drivers was that I'd update my system one day and new nvidia packages would arrive. Sure enough after checking nvidia's site, they're silently updating their legacy drivers with easy to backport fixes and general compatibility fixes with new kernels.

This is on Ubuntu of course. With Ubuntu being the primary platform to game on with Steam, they take great care of their proprietary graphics packages. Debian is getting the fallout of that, fortunately, and the nvidia kernel interface packages have never been so close to upstream in the history of Debian's existence.

Maybe it's also Valve's work on Steam OS? Steam OS uses a custom configured / patched real time kernel on a Debian base. It's totally plausible that their work is reaching the maintainers of the fglrx and nvidia packages.

Either way, things _are_ changing for the better and I'm actually optimistic. Steam's arrival to linux has changed Debian and Ubuntu for the better.
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I wish I could agree, but since I've suffered with maintaining sgfxi, which in turns always shows me what nvidia drivers support, or don't support, latest kernels, I can assure you that you happened to pick the last few months, which is the first time in a year or two that all the main drivers from nvidia are supporting all the kernels, more or less.

Before that it was breaks all the time, sometimes you just can't hack around the api/abi breaks the linux kernel guys create sometimes even within sub versions, but often major version to major version, that's been particularly bad the last years, there have been many many months long times that fglrx for instance had no driver to support latest kernels, too months before one appeared.

Same happened a lot over last 2 years with nvidia, though their group usually gets something released within a few weeks if the break is serious. But the last few months can't be used as any indication of anything sad to say, it's just a lull.
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