Won't Boot normal, boots snapshot

[Visikde]

Current on updates, was trying to install dolphin service menu for image writer. Discover installed, but when I tried to use error message said not installed. Downloaded zip from kde store & installed from CLI, still not working

Tried to restart, grub loaded & blinking cursor, never finishes booting
Hard shutdown
Restarted chose the next to last snapshot, runs, won't connect to synaptic or discover
Restarted again, blinking cursor
Restarted, chose the last kernel, Discover & Synaptic connect
How do I get back to a normal state?

[marwenius]

I think it is described quite well in the documentation:
https://github.com/SpiralLinux/SpiralLinux-project/wiki#working-with-btrfs-snapshots-and-rollbacks

[Visikde]

Rolling back was easier than the procedure described, no need for CLI...
How am I supposed to identify & repair whatever caused the breakage in the 1st place?

[marwenius]

As the explanations are somewhat unclear to me: Which of the two did you try to install (and which of these failed)?

• This: https://apps.kde.org/isoimagewriter/
• Or this: https://apps.kde.org/discover/

Additionally: Are you using the Bookworm/Stable branch of Debian or are you on Trixie/Testing or Sid/Unstable?

I ask because the package only seems to be available for the last two:

• https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=isoimagewriter&exact=1

[Visikde]

Iso image writer from Discover[shows as installed] , right click on an iso [dolphin] pops up error: Could not find program 'imagewriter'

I followed the link to "Website" https://store.kde.org/p/1527396
I installed sucessfully from cli following the instructions on the page
same error

I'm on stable

[marwenius]

I think I understand the problem.

If you enter the following commands on the command line, you will probably see that there is no result:

sudo apt update
sudo apt search imagewriter

When I enter the same commands in Trixie/Testing, I get this output:

isoimagewriter/testing 24.12.0+dfsg-1 amd64
  write hybrid iso files to usb

What you find in Discover is just a script that inserts the entry into the menu. The script does not check whether the imagewriter programme is installed, but simply adds the entry to the menu.

The programme with which you can burn ISO files is called KDE ISO Image Writer. And there you can read:

Unstable version.
Generated from the latest version of the development branch.

Means: This programme is currently not available in the stable branch.

But why did the system fail to boot? Perhaps you (unknowingly) installed other updates with Discover and thus also a new backport kernel, which may cause problems, especially (but not only) when NVIDIA is involved.

[Visikde]

Thanks for the reply
AMD Thinkpad
I updated as normal with Discover, which just updated as normal
system settings list kernel 6.11.10+bpo-amd64 (64-bit)
What kernel version should I be using?
I haven't been able to find an answer or an explanation for what the different things in the kernel number mean
I'd guess +bpo=backports,

I'm not concerned with the iso burner part, [removed]
I was trying for a Plasma/Qt solution to burning ISOs, the gtk versions look terrible & are hard for me to use with their tiny fonts
I think I used multi writer

[marwenius]

Exactly, bpo means backport, i.e. a package that was made available for the stable branch, as it is actually only available in the other branches such as testing or unstable.

You don't have much choice when it comes to backported kernels, as not every kernel version is backported. For example, the latest versions were 6.12.9, 6.11.10, 6.11.5 and 6.10.11.

An explanation of the numbers, which I found easy to understand, can be found there:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/linux4noobs/comments/1beximu/comment/kuwmwrt/

If you don't currently have new hardware that is absolutely dependent on using the latest backported kernel and there are no other problems, I would just stick with 6.11.10, as there seem to be problems with 6.12.9 for some people (for example, it works for me without any problems, but other topics here in the forum report otherwise).

To prevent the kernel from being automatically updated again with the next update, you could try marking it as ‘hold’:

• https://github.com/orgs/SpiralLinux/discussions/529#discussioncomment-12016609