If you have any more queries about rescuing your broken system then please open a new thread devoted to that topic. Thanks.

bimon wrote:

What is the best method to get a list of packages for a downgrade if I have a list of packages those I would like to keep at backports level?

You could try an emergency downgrade to ASCII then re-install the (limited) packages you want from backports.

The "version collisions" of which you speak are more likely the more backported packages that are installed so trying to install everything you can from backports doesn't make much sense IMO.

Is it possible to apt-mark hold some package at backported level and then do an emergency downgrading?

bimon wrote:

The only problem I get now: Rust 1.41.1+dfsg1-1~deb9u1 is not compatible with my old CPU.

Please open a new thread for this problem, we're waaaaay off topic here already. Thanks.

Aww... but being off topic is fun!

For instance, let's talk about eating bugs and maggots or about how the plan of google is world domination.

Btw, editing as this is meant to be a joke...

The only problem I get now: Rust 1.41.1+dfsg1-1~deb9u1 is not compatible with my old CPU.

Please open a new thread for this problem, we're waaaaay off topic here already. Thanks.

Magnus wrote:

As for Trinity, I only used it for a few days. It was when I was using Konqueror to surf that I discovered that Konqueror does not support modern web technologies. Also, I had some general issues with making things work.

Trinity is not about getting support for the newest technologies, it is about stability and a lack of at least a part of modern backdoors managed from invisible BIOS trojans which (backdoors) are most likely present in KDE4 and KDE5. Most likely modern KDEs just allow to manage records via network sockets by RPC calls and that is the problem because trojans have access to network interface while it is not easy for them to interact directly via ABI APIs.

It is like a ban of a person on his own PC ("personal computer"), what to say when someone gets banned in a server managed social network if they can ban even Knotes via IntelME like probes most likely even via communication channel in a power line.

It is a big fake that personal computers are personal since there is sometimes too much undesirable activity of some agencies.

My recordings in Trinity Knotes never disappeared while it happened even in the latest version of KDE4 already using database for notes storage on a modern computer with IntelME probes. After replacing KDE4 by Trinity it did not happen anymore and a few months later I also disabled IntelME mei kernel drivers.

There are many opinions of users who loved KDE3, that KDE5 is just a disaster in terms of which road is chosen for its development.

I didn't know kde was that bad...

Makes me think as bad as gnome has gotten, well its still worse granted, but yeah KDE isn't too good either I guess...

Kind of makes me wonder though... what will KDE do now that qt's code for LTS builds become proprietary...  5.15 LTS builds will no longer be released as free software and QT6 will  be fully proprietary...

That aside, I myself think trinity looks nice, but lately I have taken to i3-wm because of its minimalism. Even Lumina Desktop as nice as that is, is nowhere near as awesome to me as i3-wm.

As for Trinity, I only used it for a few days. It was when I was using Konqueror to surf that I discovered that Konqueror does not support modern web technologies. Also, I had some general issues with making things work.

Trinity is not about getting support for the newest technologies, it is about stability and a lack of at least a part of modern backdoors managed from invisible BIOS trojans which (backdoors) are most likely present in KDE4 and KDE5. Most likely modern KDEs just allow to manage records via network sockets by RPC calls and that is the problem because trojans have access to network interface while it is not easy for them to interact directly via ABI APIs.

It is like a ban of a person on his own PC ("personal computer"), what to say when someone gets banned in a server managed social network if they can ban even Knotes via IntelME like probes most likely even via communication channel in a power line.

It is a big fake that personal computers are personal since there is sometimes too much undesirable activity of some agencies.

My recordings in Trinity Knotes never disappeared while it happened even in the latest version of KDE4 already using database for notes storage on a modern computer with IntelME probes. After replacing KDE4 by Trinity it did not happen anymore and a few months later I also disabled IntelME mei kernel drivers.

There are many opinions of users who loved KDE3, that KDE5 is just a disaster in terms of which road is chosen for its development.

The "version collisions" of which you speak are more likely the more backported packages that are installed so trying to install everything you can from backports doesn't make much sense IMO.

When I got a version collision earlier I just installed the same with the option -t=ascii-backports

And finally I ended up with dist-upgrade -t=ascii-backports and almost everything works very well and smooth.

The only problem I get now: Rust 1.41.1+dfsg1-1~deb9u1 is not compatible with my old CPU.

Shell I try to recompile it from sources or use some type of rustup?

Actually I just wanted to play with Rust and could not, I am mainly a DotNet coder, but interested in learning Rust.

What is the best method to get a list of packages for a downgrade if I have a list of packages those I would like to keep at backports level?

You could try an emergency downgrade to ASCII then re-install the (limited) packages you want from backports.

The "version collisions" of which you speak are more likely the more backported packages that are installed so trying to install everything you can from backports doesn't make much sense IMO.

Until there is a vulnerability in glibc that will not be corrected on your system because your version is seen as "newer" than the fixed package — that would then expose pretty much every program on your system to the vulnerability.

You also now won't be able to install any packages in Devuan that depend on libc6 <v2.32 and you may experience strange problems because the Devuan packages are expecting a different API version for glibc.

There is so much you "should not do" with Linux but that I do successfully and without problems. Instead of using virtual environments, I run different environments - XFCE 4, Gnome and KDE - on different partitions with but the same / home where the different configuration files coexist. That's not the way to do it, is it? You should not even test if it works, because it is better to believe than to know.

And plugging in individual program files from Arch solved my problem that some programs could not start with Nvidia, Gnome and Wayland. But it did not cause any problems.
Installing libc from Ubuntu solved my problem with a Firefox plugin. But it did not cause any problems.

As for Trinity, I only used it for a few days. It was when I was using Konqueror to surf that I discovered that Konqueror does not support modern web technologies. Also, I had some general issues with making things work.

Right now I'm trying KDE 5 and am very impressed. Now finally all programs look the same whether it is GTK and QT. But I have not managed to get KDE to run on Wayland, yet. But I'm testing and learning... just for fun...

Simple subset subtraction would not work because there are dependencies.

I guess, almost the same can be achieved by a command like

Yes, I suppose but the aptitude search terms are much more flexible: https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apti … 05.en.html

Did you know that grep can count?

dpkg -al | grep -c "~bpo"

I would strongly recommend reverting as many of those backports as possible. In addition to the possible compatibility and reliability issues raised in the backports.debian.org quote you should also consider the fact that backports are drawn from testing and so are not covered by the Security Team and are subject to the mandatory transition delay from unstable — this means that vulnerable packages could be left unfixed for weeks and perhaps indefinitely.

EDIT: I think this will give matching results:

dpkg --list | grep -c '^ii.*~bpo'

dpkg -al | grep "~bpo" | wc
466    4805   83673
aptitude search '?narrow(?installed, ?archive(oldstable-backports))' | wc
450    4470   29919

bimon wrote:

Is there a command which could downgrade or at least indicate a list of all backported packages

aptitude search '?narrow(?installed, ?archive(ascii-backports))'

Thanks for the suggestion, but it does not display anything to me.