Upgrading to Ubuntu Hardy: a typical dist-upgrade, so far
April 28, 2008 6:29 pm freesoftware, GeneralI upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04 from 7.10 today – I set the upgrade going when I went away for lunch, half hoping that it would be done when I got back. So here’s my experiences so far.
- The upgrade stopped with a question screen after about 15 minutes. The installer wanted to know if I wanted to replace one config file which I have never touched with the distribution’s version.
- After that, the install blocked a further 9 times, one time for an OpenVPN password, when I would have much rathered it carry on without starting the VPN, and eight further times for config files. I had only changed one of these files since my previous upgrade, and would have liked that file to be kept without a question being asked.
- After rebooting, my screen was filled with error messages from crashing applet, many of whom have not been installed on my panel since I upgraded from 7.04 (because they didn’t work with 7.10).
- Apport was nice enough to offer that I create bugs for each one, which I tried to do, but apparently there was a problem with Firefox after the upgrade due to a release I’d previously installed separately, so that didn’t work until I restarted Firefox, at which point it worked swimmingly. Some bugs reported in Launchpad, but I really lost track of where I was at.
- Upgrading Gossip lost old account information. Apparently the DTD for accounts.xml changed, and the new version of Gossip can no longer parse the old accounts file. Bug reported.
- The Xrandr applet works again, after being broken in 7.10. Nice.
- Dasher still crashes when changing language or dictionary, or when importing training text. Hitting F1 in Dasher does nothing. The Dasher manual installed doesn’t correspond to the Dasher user interface. Bugs reported.
- Suspend/resume gave me a black screen the first time. I know stuff is happening when I open the lid; the wifi indicator shows that I have network, the hard drive light is flickering, but I have no screen. I’m hoping it’s a one-off, and that it’ll work now.
All in all, not what I’d come to expect from Ubuntu, although not an unfamiliar experience for me over the years. Perhaps a straight install would work better than a second dist-upgrade on a system that has actually been lived in. I haven’t tried everything yet, obviously, and I’m looking forward to seeing if there are any improvements in the support of my webcam’s driver – although I’m not holding out much hope.
April 28th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
dist-upgrading is not supported. the proper upgrade instructions are at: http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/upgrading
April 29th, 2008 at 3:32 am
Yah, I have ranted about this a couple times in my blog. If I do a smart upgrade on my RHEL box, everything works out fine. But whenever I dist-upgrade my workstation… crap, there’s always these interruptions. Unattended upgrades my arse.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:18 am
The suspend to ram issue may be related to this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/211572
April 29th, 2008 at 8:10 am
@ssam: Excuse my imprecision. When I said “dist-upgrade”, that was only because I assumed that was happening when I went “System->Administration->Update manager” and selected “Upgrade to latest version”.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:20 am
ok.
the ubuntu update-manager does a few extra things beyond apt’s distupgrade command, to help things go smoothly.
some people (i expect most people who have used debian) do the manual edit sources and use apt, and get problems that could be avoided.
April 29th, 2008 at 9:50 am
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April 29th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
I friking hate interruptions >_<
April 29th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
The update went absolutely smooth on my desktop PC, without any user interaction whatsoever.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:49 am
(from a debian POV:) install apt-utils, so you get to answer the questions up front?
April 30th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
I used the alternate CD to upgrade my laptop from 7.10. I have a BigLap from ZaReason, and the upgrade _did_ make the built-in camera start working!
-james.
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Nice, after upgrade i am stuck without wireless AND wired internet.
Ok, i understand i have to download the Ubuntu installer, though i was upgrading via the updater program. Id this updating system should go so smooth, why on earth does it not recognize and transfer my wired and wireless adapter drivers and settings. That’s not really smooth :/
May 2nd, 2008 at 1:58 pm
fw-cutter install exit with erno 1
Bah, difficult to stay kewl..
May 8th, 2008 at 10:14 am
@ssam: some people (i expect most people who have used debian) do the manual edit sources and use apt, and get problems that could be avoided.
I’ll add myself to this list .. I have a non-booting Hardy after an apt dist-upgrade (and options to consider). I heard about a new release and so did my usual, check release notes, edit sources, etc (I have done that from feisty to gutsy, no major problems that I recall). You’d only expect this process to improve, no?
Instead you comment sounds a bit like .. don’t run from the command prompt – it’ll probably break .. just double-click the icon – extra magic happens for you 🙂
I use apt-get/cache search/show, etc continuously on debian and non-debian machines .. If it’s no longer supported then make it so, no?