[Bug 876146] Re: Upgrading Ubuntu is risky (unusable or unbootable PC). What can be done to safeguard data, revert failed upgrades and overall reduce the risks?

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

I've talked with several people over the past couple of days about
different ways of restoring a system after a failed upgrade. These
include:

* Using Déjà Dup to back up files before upgrading. Difficulties: (1)
Déjà Dup currently targets your home folder, not system files; (2) a
full incremental backup system is overload for this fairly specific
task; (3) no-one has time to do the work.

* Inviting people to back up their system files to an external disk or
USB key. Difficulties: (1) it's not technically obvious how the restore
function would work; (2) no-one has time to do the work.

* Using the existing friendly-recovery software. Difficulties: (1) It's
console-based, so it has a hard friendliness limit; (2) it couldn't be
graphical, because if it was, it would be using your disk too much to be
able to fix errors on it; (3) no-one has time to do further work on it
this cycle.

* Installing a recovery image on a separate partition during
installation. Many Ubuntu OEM installations already do this
<https://launchpad.net/ubuntu-recovery>, but to help users of vanilla
Ubuntu, the setup would need to be integrated into Ubiquity.
Difficulties: (1) while it would help people installing from scratch, it
wouldn't help upgraders, because during an upgrade, the ext4 partition
you're using right now can't easily be resized to make room for the
separate partition; (2) no-one has time to do the work.

* Installing a recovery image as a file on the same partition as the
installation. Grub can happily boot from ISO files inside partitions.
Difficulties: (1) it wouldn't help if the partition gets hosed; (2) no-
one has time to do the work.

Now, when I say "no-one has time to do the work", I'm referring to the
people I've talked to about it. If anyone has a good idea about how they
can implement any of these options, I'd be happy to sketch out a design
for them to work on. Until then, though, I'm going to postpone design
work on this in favor of things that I know people plan to implement.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/876146

Title:
  Upgrading Ubuntu is risky (unusable or unbootable PC). What can be
  done to safeguard data, revert failed upgrades and overall reduce the
  risks?

Status in NULL Project:
  Invalid
Status in “update-manager” package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed

Bug description:
  Please note: This bug report will now be used to track specific code
  changes for reducing the risk of upgrading (see comment #14). Please
  stay on topic. We also have enough cases of problematic upgrades.
  Thank You.

  *Report:

  ===References:

  - Typical bad upgrade user case (forum post):
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1860359

  - Unusable upgrade pic (unbootable)
  http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=204320&d=1318627364

  - [ubuntu] Thread for failed upgrades (huge list within 24 to 48 hours)
  http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1858475

  - Unofficial poll, but might serve useful as another source of data and user cases. Also, reference for future polls. Current sample of about 3k users, ~22% needed to reinstall.
  http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/10/how-well-did-your-ubuntu-11-10-upgrade-go/
  http://www.reddit.com/r/Ubuntu/comments/lm036/how_well_did_your_ubuntu_1110_upgrade_go/

  ===Description:

  Lots of angry users with broken computers that need rescue...

  The friendly Upgrade popup has become a mouse trap for new and
  unsuspecting users.

  Warnings and fail-safe alternatives and/or advise should be offered.
  Specially for users who cant risk having their computers broken (only
  have 1 OS). Nor have the knowledge, will, time and patience to fix
  something like this.

  I think this should be Critical for "Precise" pangolin as the number
  of users upgrading will be in the Tens if not hundreds of thousands
  (or millions...), since this will be the new LTS.

  ===Initial proposal:

  See comment #10:
  https://bugs.launchpad.net/ayatana-design/+bug/876146/comments/10

  ===Other related helpers for the upgrade problem:

  -There is no "feedback and reporting tool to count the number of bad
  upgrades" and their related causes. Users should be able to give
  immediate feedback after every upgrade (successful or not). "Ubuntu-
  bug upgrade-report" on startup after an upgrade and a section on
  launchpad or dedicated site.

  -Update/upgrade manager should offer an auto-backup wizard to safe
  guard important user files to another partition, external storage or
  online (See comment #10).

  -Also separate branches for testing and a better release process/cycle would certainly help diminish the amount of bugs and many upgrade problems as it has been discussed here:
  http://netsplit.com/2011/09/08/new-ubuntu-release-process/

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