[ale] Ubuntu upgrade

[wolf at wolfhalton.info]

It occurs to me that you could do a bare-metal install, retaining
your /home partition (if your initial install was designed with a
separate /home partition, and if not, then you could back up the /home
partition to a removable usb hard drive I think the command would be 

cp -R /home /media/removable_drive/home

Those wiser than me will give you better code to do this.
The end result is you have your old home stuff on a separate partition
under a non-twisted Ubu-update.
Much quicker than the research, though I only suggest it if speed is
important.  

Wolf

-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Pitts <brian at polibyte.com>
Reply-to: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux! <ale at ale.org>
To: Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts - Yes! We run Linux! <ale at ale.org>
Subject: Re: [ale] Ubuntu upgrade
Date: Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:58:49 -0400


On 07/05/2010 05:18 PM, drifter wrote:
> I continue my descent into madness with this issue.
>
> {Someone asked about the version of Grub. It is 0.97}

What version of UBuntu did you originally install? Grub 0.97 was last 
used in 9.04. 9.10 and 10.04 use 1.98, aa Grub 2.

> With the help and hints of this community I have been exploring
> the idea that I have an "upstart" problem.

It's possible that your init system is broken and not starting th 
eservice that should start X, sure.

It's also possible that X is trying to start but failing. Have you 
looked at /var/log/Xorg.0.log ?

> Watching the boot process carefully, I see that I get an Ubuntu
> splash screen, complete with graphic for maybe two tenths of a
> second before the command prompt appears.  That indicates to
> me that for a brief moment the Xserver is running.   Then, I'm
> guessing, something kills it.

The splash screen is shown by plymouth. It is stopped when the boot 
sequence completed. So that you see graphics and they go away is not 
strange. What should happen next is that the gnome display manager 
starts. This not happening is what is strange.

> Hunting around I discovered /usr/share/doc/upstart. This directory contains
> the file, README.Debian.gz.  Ha, I thought. the answer to my problem may lie
> within.  But the file is owned by root, and there is no way for Joe user
> to unpack the file!!!!!!!!  Sometimes I just do not understand the
> convoluted minds of programmers.  What sort of peeled idiot would make
> a README file unreadable?

It's not unreadable. 'less README.Debian.gz' will rad it just fine. Look 
at the manpage for 'lesspipe' to understand how this works.

> If I were to change the DEFAULT_RUNLEVEL to 5, would that help?

No. Runlevels 2-5 are configured the same.


> Thinking about Brian Pitts comments, how can I check the kernel arguments
> and erase the "single" if it appears there?  And should I then replace it
> with something else?

Huh? I'm not sure how this related to my comment.

> My current plan is to backup /home and run a fresh install from the
> DVD I have in hand if I can't get this to work pretty damn soon now. :)

Good idea.

>>
>> Make sure your computer is plugged into a wired network and turned off.
>> Turn it on and hold down shift; this should bring up the GRUB2 menu.
>> Select the entry labeled "recovery mode". If you're not in too bad a
>> shape, this should eventually load a menu with different automated
>> recovery options you can choose. One of them is labeled something like
>> "repair broken packages". Choose it and see what happens.

Did you try this yet?



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