Bug#775065: dpkg --configure -a results in "Hangup" after first package

[Chris Carr]

On 11/01/2015 19:25, Michael Biebl wrote:
> Is your system fully booted or did systemd drop you into emergency
> shell? How are you logged into your system?
The default boot drops me into an emergency shell. It was not fully booted.
>
> Assuming, the sysvinit is still installed (which should be the case on
> upgrades), please select the sysvinit option from the grub extended menu.
> If it's not available, boot with init=/lib/sysvinit/init
>
> Does that change anything?
Yes! Thank you, thank you.

Selecting the (sysvinit) option from the grub extended menu results in a 
full boot: gdm3 doesn't start but I do get a login prompt. After logging 
in, sudo dpkg --configure -a actually worked. This meant that I could 
complete a sudo apt-get dist-upgrade.

All packages are now fully configured except gkrellmd (which I removed 
to ensure everything is clean).

I still cannot start gdm3:

chrisc at tony:~$ sudo invoke-rc.d gdm3 start
[....] Starting GNOME Display Manager: gdm3[ 1094.663256] 
systemd-logind[9907]: Failed to enable subscription: Launch helper 
exited with unknown return code 1
[ 1094.669994] systemd-logind[9907]: Failed to fully start up daemon: 
Input/output error
Error org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.Spawn.ChildExited: Launch helper exited 
with unknown return code 1
  failed!
invoke-rc.d: initscript gdm3, action "start" failed.
chrisc at tony:~$

There seem to be two problems there: one is gdm3 not starting, and the 
other is logind complaining about not being fully started.

So, now that I can boot using sysvinit, what tests should I do to try 
and debug what is going on with the systemd boot? I can now produce 
logfiles, run reportbug etc. etc.

Thanks to all for helping me recover my system,

CC