[ale] Ubuntu upgrade

Mon Jul 5 08:55:59 EDT 2010

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I just finished upgrading 20 (or so) Ubuntu 9.10 servers to 10.4 without
Nuke-N-Pave method and I had no issues.  I dont think that is the best
way (normally) to upgrade.  And majority of them with 9.04 before that.
 Just upgrading in-place version after version after version.

BUT since this server is toast, it is probably the fastest way to fix
the issues.

Jim Philips wrote:
> It sounds to me like you have a mixture of old and new Grub config
> files. This could have come from the way you upgraded Ubuntu. When I am
> upgrading to a new version, as I did for Ubuntu 10.04, I back up my home
> directory and do a "nuke and pave". That is, I completely reformat the
> partition and install Linux anew. This was an especially good idea for
> 10.04, because they moved to a new version of Grub. If I go to
> /boot/grub, I don't even have a menu.lst file, since Grub doesn't rely
> on that file for configuration in version 1.98. And version 1.98 is
> standard for Ubuntu 10.04. The config file for that version is grub.cfg.
> Open Synaptic (or other package manager) and see what version of Grub
> you have installed. So, if you didn't do a nuke and pave when you
> upgraded, I would recommend that. Yes, you will have to reinstall some
> programs. But it's worth it.
> 
> On Sun, Jul 4, 2010 at 9:19 PM, drifter <drifter at oppositelock.org
> <mailto:drifter at oppositelock.org>> wrote:
> 
>     Still fighting this and having problems as my Linux background
>     (shallow as
>     it is) is Red Hat, not Debian.
> 
>     This netbook upgraded to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
>     It starts up in runlevel 3 -- at least that's what I think it is.
>     All I get is a (root) prompt. if I type "startx" [Ent] after logging in,
>     the hard drive churns for a few seconds and my desktop appears.
>     There is no /etc/inittab file.
> 
>     Ubuntu is >supposed< to be the "easy to use" Linux distro that doesn't
>     do STUPID things like this.  Anyone coming from Windoze would have no
>     clue what was wrong or how to fix it.
> 
>     I, at least, know that somewhere I have to add the command "startx."
>     I just do not know what file I need to edit, or where it might be
>     hidden.
>     It doesn't seem to be in /boot or /boot/grub.
> 
>     Sean
> 
>     PS  The file /boot/grub/menu.lst has the following after the list
>     of default options:
> 
>     title       Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-23-generic
>     uuid       1866e268-96e3-4aaf-b727-b66140d931a3
>     kernel   /vmlinuz-2.6.32-23-generic root=UUID=99b3c22....ro
>     quiet splash
>     initrd     /initrd.img-2.6.32.23-generic
>     quiet
> 
>     This is followed by the same kernel (recovery mode) followed by four
>     more
>     pairs of kernel entries ending up with 2.6.28-15.
>     Should the last line in the block above be "startx"?
> 
>     ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
>     On Sunday 04 July 2010 19:53:38 Brian Pitts wrote:
>     > On 07/04/2010 06:43 PM, drifter wrote:
>     > > Okay; I upgraded the Ubuntu install on my netbook from 9.whatever
>     > > to 10.whatever.
>     > > Apparently I now need to edit the grub boot menu as the OS now boots
>     > > into runlevel 3. On Fedora/RedHat the runlevel used to be set in
>     > > /etc/inittab  but there doesn't seem to be any such file on this
>     box.
>     > >
>     > > So how do I get to the grub boot file to edit it to start in
>     Runlevel
>     > > 5 and, if necessary, tell it to startX?
>     >
>     > Runlevels 2-5 are the same in Ubuntu and probably most other
>     > Debian-derived distributions. I just checked a working Ubuntu 10.04
>     > desktop and it is at runlevel 2.
>     >
>     > So, I don't think the runlevel is your problem.
>     >
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