[Bug 496383] Re: Miserable experience upgrading from Jaunty to Karmic

[Launchpad Bug Tracker]

[Expired for update-manager (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity
for 60 days.]

** Changed in: update-manager (Ubuntu)
       Status: Incomplete => Expired

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/496383

Title:
  Miserable experience upgrading from Jaunty to Karmic

Status in “update-manager” package in Ubuntu:
  Expired

Bug description:
  Binary package hint: update-manager

  Who knows how many packages this actually involves.

  My server runs Jaunty and I'm trying to upgrade to Karmic.  It is
  connected via a KVM and uses a USB keyboard and mouse.  I was switched
  away from the machine while the actual installation was happening
  (installing/upgrading all those packages takes a very long time).
  Part way through the upgrade stopped asking me if I wanted to keep my
  changes to /etc/hdparm.conf.  However at this part of the upgrade
  process Ubuntu cunningly decided not to support USB any more.  It was
  not possible to do any form of interaction via USB keyboard or mouse
  via the KVM nor with spares plugged directly into the computer.  In
  the end I had to resort to hitting the reset button.  (The machine was
  still working fine with various clocks etc updating).

  On reboot the boot hangs doing NFS exports with no way to fix that.  I
  tried booting in recovery mode hoping to be able to get a shell to at
  least move /etc/exports out the way, but of course I can only do that
  with a root password.  My system doesn't have a root password as per
  normal ubuntu installation.  At least let me login as a user who can
  then sudo to root!

  I finally chose the recovery option to fixup dpkg.  It is installing
  all sorts of stuff including asking me about /etc/hdparm.conf again,
  but in text mode which is way harder to interact with.  On another
  file it offered me a shell to fixup a merge which didn't work (no
  error message, no shell, just the same menu again).  And who knows
  what won't be cleaned up now since my upgrade is finishing via dpkg
  recovery directly and not update-manager.

  The lessons and fixes:

  - Input via USB, BlueTooth etc *must* *always* work throughout the
  upgrade process

  - The recovery boot option needs to let me login as a user who can get
  to root, not only root.  Especially relevant if root has no password
  (ie 99.99% of Ubuntu systems)

  - The whole upgrade process should register itself as part of the boot
  process and automatically continue if it did not finish.  There are
  many other reasons the upgrade process could get screwed during the
  upgrade process (eg power failures, panics, disk space, X crashing
  etc)

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