[ale] Ubuntu help

[Joshua Kite]

On Mon, Jan 26, 2009 at 3:15 PM, Joshua Kite <jwkite at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2009/1/26 Michael B. Trausch <mike at trausch.us>
>
>> On Sun, 25 Jan 2009 21:42:55 -0500
>> Joshua Kite <jwkite at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I have a machine that had Ubuntu Feisty on it.  I needed to add some
>> > packages when I realized the shortcomings of not keeping a distro
>> > current; the Feisty packages have been archived because it is no
>> > longer supported. Long story short, I ultimately ended up changing
>> > the sources.list file to point to Hardy and managed to mostly get the
>> > box upgraded.  However, I continually had issues apt installing
>> > linux-generic and other kernel-related packages.  I had run in to
>> > dependency hell.
>>
>> The problem here is that you skipped from Feisty to Hardy.  Probably
>> the best bet would have been to upgrade from Feisty (7.04) to Gutsy
>> (7.10), and then to Hardy (8.04).
>>
>> Officially speaking, Ubuntu's upgrading infrastructure only supports
>> upgrading from one release to the next immediate release; the only
>> exception for that is from LTS to LTS.  For example, users of Dapper
>> did not have to upgrade from Dapper to Edgy to Feisty to Gutsy to
>> Hardy.  They were able to skip Edgy, Feisty, and Gutsy altogether and
>> just upgrade directly to Hardy.  When the next LTS comes out, Hardy
>> will be able to upgrade directly to it, as well.
>>
>> I don't suppose that there is probably a way to revert the packages to
>> the state that they were in before you started with this.  Given that,
>> I would wipe the drive and install Intrepid.  :-P
>>
>> You mentioned 2.2 kernels.  I don't know what you're referring to,
>> there; Ubuntu uses the 2.6 series and has all the way back to Ubuntu
>> 4.10, the very first release (which used Linux 2.6.8 for its kernel).
>>
>> Could you provide some extra data?  If you could pastebin the following
>> files:
>>
>>  /boot/grub/menu.lst
>>  /var/log/apt/term.log [Only starting from the upgrade]
>>
>> Also, the output of the following commands will be useful:
>>
>>  ls -ld /boot/*
>>  dpkg -l
>>
>> I mentioned pastebin because some of these are going to be quite
>> lengthy and shouldn't be on-list.  I'd recommend pasting them there and
>> then providing links here.
>>
>>        --- Mike
>>
>> --
>> My sigfile ran away and is on hiatus.
>> http://www.trausch.us/
>>
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>> http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale
>>
>> Mike,
>
> Thanks for the help.  After a good night's sleep, I have booted via livecd
> and chrooted into my system.  Just to cover all the bases, my system has /
> /boot /home /usr and /var on different partitions, and I mounted all of
> those before chrooting.
>
> I have used apt-get to remove all linux images and similar packages.  My
> goal at this point is to install the linux-server package, although I would
> be content with any working kernel at this point.
>
> Per your request, here are the files you asked for (and thanks, btw, for
> introducing me to pastebin):
>
> /boot/grub/menu.lst  http://pastebin.com/m27055ad2
>
> /var/log/apt/term.log (starting after the upgrade got the machine stable
> but before I ended up removing the kernel) http://pastebin.com/m76ada55f
>
>
> ls -ls /boot/*  http://pastebin.com/m75fd2534
> dpkg -l http://pastebin.com/m16834573
>
> When I attempt the following:
> sudo apt-get install linux-server I receive the following:
> http://pastebin.com/d5ff8059f
>
> The part that confuses me are the last five lines:
>
>        1.
>           Errors were encountered while processing:
>        2.
>            linux-image-2.6.24-23-server
>        3.
>            linux-ubuntu-modules-2.6.24-23-server
>        4.
>            linux-image-server
>        5.
>
>                linux-server
>
> How does one go about resolving dependency problems when attempting to
> install the kernel???
>
> Thanks Mike and anyone else for your help.
>
> Josh Kite
>
>

As an update - it looks like the upgrade caused grub to be uninstalled.  The
result was that the update-grub script didn't exist, causing the kernel
updates configurations to fail.  I have re-installed grub and apt-get is no
longer throwing errors.  I'm about to reboot to see what happens.

This is one of those processes where I have learned a lot, but I do not want
to repeat.

I'll post the results and any additional lessons learned.  Lesson one - keep
Ubuntu systems current.

Josh Kite
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