After upgrading Glibc: "login: command not found"!!

[Wallex]

Well what do you know... I updated Glibc and followed all the instructions according to the INSTALL file. Before the make install, I had to change to runlevel 1 and do that as root. I did. Then when I go back to runlevel 5 when it displays 'login:' and I enter my login... nothing happens, another line with 'login:' pops up. I go '???' and go see my logs. Amazing... /bin/login command not found!! Gee.. how did I do that? I didn't know installing software would actually remove files. Since I am pretty much stuck as it is, I am installing SuSE on a different partition in order to mount / and see what exactly is going on. This make take a while, so I'll probably be back later explaining what I find (and if I fix it, how I did), because really... I did nothing but to follow the instructions! Maybe I 'could' be missing some kind of add-on... but the install file said the only one I needed was glibc-threads, and I did configure with the flag to use all addons. I also modified my etc/profile file, but that was to add my locale setting (ZT:<mylocal>; export ZT), but since the command is directly invoked as /bin/login, it can't be a path problem. Weird beans, uh?

[Wallex]

Well... I got back into the system using the rescue mode. I mounted hda2 on /home, and went into /home/bin, and certainly... there was no login binary there. Hmm... so what to do now? I decided to cp the rescue's login binary from /bin to /home/bin, reboot... I can login now, but I get a couple of errors:
cannot open login definitions /etc/login.defs (or something like that.. hey I am a house away from my computer, I can't quite remember all this stuff and I am too lazy to write it down). Hmm... apparently, I don't need to use login anymore... as it's been completely wiped out of my system. Wonder which program I should use then? I check in bin... and I see something called logger... maybe that's not it. Nope... I can't quite understand why login mysteriously disappeared. Is it a command I can just install? I'll look into that tomorrow, I am kinda tired for today. Ah and guess what else... it's gonna be a bit difficult to fix my problem since I lack support of some basic commands like ls:
ls: relocation error: /usr/local/lib/libpthread.so.0: Undefined Symbol: _dl_cpuclock_offset. Oh I'll search for this too tomorrow...

man aren't I an expert breaking up my system? Altough i am sure there are people better at that in here.

[Wallex]

Well... it seems I really did screwed up my system for good this time. It's not gonna be easy to fix when simple commands like 'vi' or 'shutdown' cause segmentation faults (I could still shut it down, because SuSE included the ctrl+alt+del combination for a quick restart). Well... I would love going back there and doing my best to fix the problem, but you see.. I just don't have the time, I am a college student and I have pending homework to do, damn Linux sucking all my time away from me!
I'll just go back to Windows... NOT! I'll just have to reinstall SuSE on another partition, then move my home and start reinstalling all I had installed in the past (thankfully I kept the source of all my programs). Ah... isn't Linux fun?

PD: Hmm... this time I'll use XFS or JFS for a filesystem, and I am still gonna upgrade my Kernel. I am not sure I wanna try to upgrade Glibc again (as I would probably follow the same steps all over again and end with the same result).

[i_like_peanut_butter]

I believe that if you upgrade Glibc you need to recompile all of the programs dynamically linked to it. Or maybe all programs statically linked to it. Either way Glibc is darn important.

[bwkaz]

Rather than trying to upgrade glibc next time, just install a newer distro...

That would make sense to me at least.

;)

[sarah31]

Originally posted by i_like_peanut_butter
I believe that if you upgrade Glibc you need to recompile all of the programs dynamically linked to it. Or maybe all programs statically linked to it. Either way Glibc is darn important.

i believe that it is important not to instal glibc while in x at all (as you did). It is also necessary to try and rebuild or replace all statically linked applications.

glibc is indeed one of the most difficult things to upgrade.

[sarah31]

Originally posted by bwkaz
Rather than trying to upgrade glibc next time, just install a newer distro...

That would make sense to me at least.

;)

and what do you learn from that.

its a cop out.

once i install i don't want to reinstall. actually you shouldn't need to reinstal or buy/download another distribution. IMHO of course

[Wallex]

Wow I've forgotten about this thread. I've been too busy formatting and reinstalling all... yeah, I would prefer not to reinstall ever again after the first install, but... well, maybe I amjust lazy and as I stated before I was running out of time. I did follow all the instructions on the INSTALL file, ./configure, make,make install... not! I was careful to logout and return in runlevel 1 before doing the infamous make_install. The problem is... well, as I said before, the /bin/login command disappeared... now that's weird beans.. how could I have lost that so important command? Anyway.. afterwards, I had problems loading everything up because of some error (undefined symbols when referencing the gpm libraries)... you know, updating might not be so bad.. unless you have a system which is already a year old, then when you need to update something it's dependency hell forever. Anyway... it's easier to just use the stock SuSE kernel for now because it has support for XFS, and if I wanted to get my own vanilla kernel.. I had to download it from CVS at the XFS site from where they are developing the port... ack, wished it would make it into the official kernel release... oh well, I'll just wait. So far XFS feels nice.. altough I've yet to go play with hdparm, I am still installing basic programs to get my GUI looking nice... ack, shucks to be a newbie all over again.

[bwkaz]

Originally posted by sarah31
and what do you learn from that.

its a cop out. Perhaps. But at the same time, if his system is hosed already, why not just go with a newer version and not worry about it?

I should have made my original post clearer... I meant to not try to install whichever version distro you have, and then try to upgrade glibc again, but rather to just install a newer version distro. You may not learn as much, but it will work at least. Then, later, you can even make a scratch partition, install whatever distro is a generation old, and try the upgrade from there.

I've done it once (LFS -- glibc 2.2.4 to 2.2.5), and although I didn't have to recompile anything else at all, very very little was actually installed at the time. I had just finished the LFS book (which meant I had the bare minimal system) when I tried it.