[SolarNet]

Well there is your problem. You have the NVIDIA graphics drivers / GL shim "installed". Likely manually because that's the only way they can be used (maybe your distribution did it automatically, but I find that doubtful); you can tell you did it through this simple question: did you use the video card's acceleration at any point? if you did (and I assume you did, since you called it a system by the brand of your video card) you have effectively told your package manager (probably through some "convenient" NVIDIA provided "installer" script):

"I really really want this package and do whatever other proprietary shit this script I didn't read thought was a good idea (like maybe put it into the system with some bizarre name) on a system that will always have this NVIDIA card in it"

And now you are trying to upgrade to something (the proper mesa gl library) which conflicts with that request. But because the package you "installed" has no information (because it's not a real package; because it's a bundle of proprietary code that NVIDIA refuses to properly support) the package manager can't really help you (it can't remove a package it doesn't know how to, so it can't remove the dependencies it's providing, so it can't add a new package with the same provided dependencies). You have to undo whatever shit that script did before you can proceed with a stable system.

Also note, what you are trying, is basically impossible with a Windows system (e.g. installing an arbitrary video driver; moving a system - without re-installation - from hardware to a virtual box system, or even hardware to hardware). So if it doesn't work... it's not like you had any other options anyway. NVIDIA assumes the Windows paradigm here, the open source systems you bludgeon with their proprietary code can do nothing to stop the bad actors you force on them from doing bad things.

I don't know the list of NVIDIA driver packages off the top of my head, or whatever bizarre shit they did to your installation, and it's not the responsibility of the Linux community to provide tech support for your hardware manufacturer. I had considered trying to be more helpful, and do some cursory research into your problem, but your attitude towards someone else that was being extremely helpful showed you don't want to be helped, you want to angry at someone. We are not your tech support, so I can tell you: Fuck off.

[throwanem]

> Well there is your problem. You have the NVIDIA graphics drivers / GL shim "installed".

Not in Virtualbox without the guest additions installed. Even with them, it would be a different binary blob. I mean, don't let me get in the way of your profane, unhelpful, and extremely unnecessary rant, but...

[SolarNet]

I mean. Based off of his posts, he implied he took an image from a physical machine with Nvidia hardware and put it in a virtual machine (on an unspecified system with out guest additions anyway). Are you claiming a disk image of an OS running with Nvidia hardware (that used the acceleration) - with that shim installed - is not going to have that package added anymore if I just stick it in a VM? If so what mechanism would have done that?

As to your effort question. Because I want people to use these systems. As I was writing a detailed response he started writing troll responses (implying the people had read some other story and responded to his for some reason he couldn't fathom; and requiring excessive amounts of evidence) to people offering honest explanations and differing opinions. So I wrote an ending paragraph to what I had that called him out on trolling these people for "tech support" as that as the most charitable way I could view his actions.

It's frustrating when trolls take advantage of people's willingness to help with technical requests as a way to disguise shutting down disagreement by asking questions with large burdens. And then also his changing his story once they respond (often editing his posts without EDIT markers), implying they got everything about his vague statements wrong and that his evidence - his anecdotal setup - disagrees. He has set up a situation where it is easy for his anecdotal evidence to be infallible unless someone can somehow figure out his vague error which is a symptom of his misunderstanding more than it is the system, but his response to attempts to explain the system have been met with his trolling about how they are reading something different. I suspect now that his trollish behavior is a way to defend his argument and incompetence from being challenged.

[throwanem]

If your concern is with making Linux on the desktop more appealing, it may be worth your while to consider whether your discursive style, in the role of (presumably self-appointed) community representative, might make it more likely or less likely that people will want to participate in the community you claim to represent.

As it happens, my own experience with the Linux community suggests that you do not accurately represent it at all, at least not when you act as badly as you have here. Someone with no such prior experience, faced with your execrable behavior here and your claim to represent that community in so behaving, could not reasonably be blamed for the conclusion that attempting to engage with that community would be a terrible mistake.

[SolarNet]

I never claimed to be a member, let alone some sort of representative, I'm not nearly nice enough. It was more of a "leave those nice people alone with your trolling" than a "leave us alone".

Surprising is, that no one seems to have a problem with the technical side of what I posted. Just the fact I said a bad word. To wit, I have news for you, the guy who runs linux swears all the time at all kinds of people. I wouldn't touch the stuff if I were you.

Also still waiting to hear how a disk image looses a package when placed in a VM.

[throwanem]

Torvalds doesn't represent the Linux community to current or prospective users. He doesn't even represent the Linux community to devs who aren't on LKML. So pleading his style doesn't help your case here. As for

> I never claimed to be a member, let alone some sort of representative

Earlier, you said:

> We are not your tech support

Whom, then, did you mean by "we"?

And as far as the technical side, well, who knows? You're very quick to assume you understand exactly what's going on, but I don't see why that means I should be likewise.

[mehrdadn]

> We are not your tech support, so I can tell you: [expletive] off.

1. I wasn't here to seek tech support at all. The discussion was on package managers and I was sharing an experience I had. Users such as you decided to issue judgments that I must have necessarily ignored apt and broken my system by... installing non-OSS software (?!) without any information on my actual system setup. As I said in the very beginning, I already reverted to my backup. Nowhere did I solicit tech support, and nowhere did I expect any, especially based on almost complete lack of knowledge about the actual system configuration.

2. Flagged. This is the first time I've seen such an attack on HN. And you can imagine I have no interest in replying after this.

[SolarNet]

You were asking to be provided tech support here:

> Which of these packages is proprietary? I was doing this in VirtualBox without guest additions installed, and while I used to boot this installation on an NVIDIA system, I don't believe I had any NVIDIA-specific packages on it. Let me know the proprietary package name(s) you think I had and I'll search to see if I had any of them installed.

(Also, how would you do that if it was already wiped? Edit 2: yea.... because as not tech support I have read everything you have posted on your problem and am aware you have backups)

You were acting pretty entitled to this other person's help here:

> What "it" are you even talking about? I didn't "choose to ignore" anything. I Marked all Upgrades, clicked Apply, rebooted when it was finished, went to see if there were any more upgrades (there were some), tried to mark & apply them, and was greeted with this error. Apt/Synaptic got me into this broken state and couldn't get me out of it. I don't know what story you're reading, but it doesn't seem to be what I've been writing. There was nothing for me to ignore. The error wasn't something I ignored; it was the problem.

Edit: Oh and that's a perfectly civil response to you continuing to tell people who know how these systems actually work (which does not include you) that they are incapable of understanding what you are writing and implying that they are somehow delusional.

[mehrdadn]

I'll reply to this because you posted it after I was finished editing my reply above, but as I said there, I have no interest in replying to your profanity beyond this:

>> You were asking to be provided tech support here:

> Which of these packages is proprietary? [...] Let me know the proprietary package name(s) you think I had and I'll search to see if I had any of them installed.

I was fact-checking your (unsolicited) diagnosis, which you had already provided despite my lack of request for any kind of support. You made a claim seemingly out of the blue that caught me off-guard (it seemed unfounded and I had neither requested support nor a diagnosis), and in response I said if you wanted to check your facts I would provide you with information to confirm or disprove your (again: unsolicited) diagnosis. I thought maybe you would be interested in seeing whether you are correct. Of course I won't anymore, after your profane verbal abuse.

> (Also, how would you do that if it was already wiped?)

Because as I said multiple times since the beginning, I had a backup from before the update, which I ended up restoring to. Apparently you are not reading?

[SolarNet]

> I was fact-checking your (unsolicited) diagnosis, which you had already provided despite my lack of request for any kind of support.

Yes, I posted a general response to the class of problems that your anecdotal story appeared to apply to. In an informal discussion of anecdotal evidence, what sort of fact checking do you seriously think could be performed? It's basically impossible. You are trying to set an impossible bar for anyone to comment on anything you say.

> I said if you wanted to check your facts I would provide you with information to confirm or disprove you

That's... not how any of this could possibly ever work. You want me to perform research so that you can tell me whether I got it right or not? My original response stands regardless of if it effects your system: proprietary code is often a problem for package managers.

But further more, as the one holding the anecdotal (and physical) evidence, the onus is on you to agree or disagree with facts using it. Your request for me to do original research specific to your problem is at it's most charitable a tech support style question (even if phrased along the lines "what technical knowledge do I need to prove you wrong?"). Because if it were a request for evidence in a discussion it would be an unreasonable request positioned to stifle all disagreement with you by placing unnecessarily large (e.g. ridiculous) burdens on anyone who comments (to which my response would be much stronger).

If alternatively you had said "I doubt that because I never installed NVIDIA code on the system." or nothing at all. I wouldn't have cared or responded.

[throwanem]

Why did it mean so much to you? What made this particular expenditure of all that effort worthwhile?

[qznc]

I side with dataflow here. It would have been a "perfectly civil response" without the last paragraph, especially the "Fuck off". Likewise, in your last paragraph above you label him "incapable of understanding" and "delusional". That is not "perfectly civil".

[SolarNet]

No I said he implied that about other people. When he said they weren't reading what he was saying and were instead talking about some other story. If a person wrote a response exactly about his scenario, then saying what he did in response would imply that he thought that person was delusional. Which is what happened. I quoted it.

That was the point I gave up on him being an honest participant.

[talmand]

That's okay, I'm sure many of us gave up on your side of the discussion as well.