Debian Testing update nightmare

I applied updates to Debian testing for the first time in a while. A whopping 1,5GB set of package downloads.

I'm at fault for a few things here:

• I have not been regularly applying updates - last one was probably in October.


• I should not be running a production server on the testing release - I do this to access the latest R libraries amongst others


• I should not have done this the weekend before i needed to be at an offsite client workshop for a week

Those admissions made, what a nightmare!

The Grub2 completely broke the system. The source of the problem is that Grub2 appears to have real problems on RAIDs. I got the "Cannot find operating system" error. Using the SysRescCD I managed to rewrite the MBR, uninstall Grub2, revert to Grub Legacy, and finally bring the system up again.

The next disaster? X.Org locks up entirely after the boot. You cannot use the keyboard or mouse and you cannot switch to another TTY. SysRescCD again, and disabled GDM/KDM in the /etc/init.d startup scripts.

Biggest disaster? The server is running on an old HP Netserver LH3 with a NetRaid controller. I've been using the 2.6.24.3 kernel for a while now because later kernels' Megaraid drivers have given problems with the card causing kernel panics. The problem? Udev now gives the message: "udev requires a kernel >= 2.6.26"

I'm busy compiling the 2.6.32.5 kernel from scratch at the moment with Megaraid legacy support. Let's hope I can get it up. t-2 hours from departure to the client offsite with a koi pond crisis to sort out too.

NIGHTMARE!