When wifi stopped working, after all these years, I discovered that I have new kernel and software with file dates before 7:30 AM today.
Must have been something I did, but … what? Would HaikuDepot do that for an application? Do any of these things leave logs? (As for 7:30 AM … indeed I was at it this morning, though 7:30 seems early. I’m on WET, same as GMT.)
What am I running, now? “About” shows the same hrev56578 but notices the kernel file date (Nov 4.)
Ahoy @donn ,
On Haiku
there is no “accidental” Haiku update -
I mean you have to
issue one of pkgman update/full-sync command to do that,
or
use the System Update GUI proigram
to do package updates - only by yourself.
There is no background update mechanism like on Windows 10/11.
If such update happened “somehow” (by you) - you have a chance to check it - in
/boot/system/packages/administrative directory where you can find several directory with the exact date/time timestamp about states of updates wich contains the updated packages – I mean the older, previous ones(s) which were updated --, this way you can reinstall them from there.
Unfortunately there is no any pkgman install log by default
at least not in
/boot/system/var/log directory
which contains the generic syslog and its older
(or previous ) version.
Of course you can redirect the standard output and error of the issued pkgman command into a text “logfile” - if you want.
In case System Update - dunno. On GUI : it should be set to have such feature. I am not sure if it it was enabled anyhow as I am “evil” admin - kind person :b, so I prefer command line in some cases – this way I had not checked closer the System Update GUI program.
I just use a similar at Haiku installation only, as it is a part of the installer - but there I just use passively as I open it but generally leave the all packages selected and installed.
I hope my answer could help you and you got useful infos.
If there is a System Update GUI program, I don’t seem to have it.
It looks to me like a software install creates a new packages/administrative directory. Whether by pkgman or HaikuDepot, which I assume are effectively the same. It’s interesting that the first recent administrative directory was 2 1/2 hours after the dates on the updated system files.
I’m just assuming the files were updated, because 1) the time stamps, and 2) wifi stopped working. hrev56578+93 … the +93 may be trying to tell me something. Anyway, I don’t think I’m going to find the old kernel etc. in the hpkg files in the adminstrative directory.
I didn’t really imagine that the OS would schedule automatic updates. What I’m wondering is if there is some application that when added via HaikuDepot, would trigger a process that ends up installing a new kernel etc. I did notice that one of the things I tried, required me to reboot.
It is called SoftwareUpdater.
Yes, beta4 was branched from master at revision hrev56578, and since then, the beta4 branch received 93 new commits. You can see the history here.
Unless you removed the different state-[timestamp] subdirs under /system/packages/administrative/, that’s exactly where you should find the old packages.
In fact, you should simple be able to reboot, hit SPACE (or hold SHIFT if using BIOS boot) to get into the Haiku Boot Menu, and select that old state to boot into that older system version.
For more info, see: Updating and downgrading your system | Haiku Project or the “downgrading” section of the linked SoftwareUpdater docs.
If you installed a package that was built recently, it can indeed require a newer version of Haiku than the one you had installed, as packages require a Haiku version >= to the one used by the buildmasters at the time the package was built.
But none of this is done silently, as pkgman, HaikuDepot, and SoftwareUpdater show you what will be done, as ask for confirmation before downloading/installing/updating things.
The required-reboot is only necessary when updating/downgrading the system (haiku-*.hpkg) packages.
Thanks! This mostly adds up now. With the exception that reverting to the older kernel update didn’t bring the wifi device back into working order, but rather than try to figure out what happened there, I installed a more recent nightly and it’s back.