[Bug 365485] Re: Aborted upgrade process left laptop in a non-functional state

[Jason White]

** Summary changed:

- Aborted upgrade process left laptop in totally fucked state
+ Aborted upgrade process left laptop in a non-functional state

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/365485

Title:
  Aborted upgrade process left laptop in a non-functional state

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

Bug description:
  While upgrading a laptop from Ubuntu 8.10 to 9.04, the user noticed
  that openoffice.org-writer had taken about 15 minutes to be unpacked.
  Investigating futher I noticed that the dpkg process was in the
  uninterruptible sleep state (D). Examining the kernel message buffer
  with dmesg I saw that several OOPSes had occurred (I'll try to attach
  the output once I get the laptop up and running again). At this point
  I decided to reboot; that was a bad idea...

  The laptop would no longer boot up. Instead of X starting at the end
  of the bootup process, there was simply a blank screen. After a few
  moments I realised that the system was simply sitting on a blank
  virtual console, and was able to switch to another tty and log in.

  At this point, I ran startx, but the system froze completely with a
  black screen and a mouse pointer. I had to hard-reboot; this time, I
  ran 'update-manager -d' to try to resume the upgrade, but got an error
  saying that pygtk could not be imported.

  I doubt the exact cause of this problem will ever be identified, even
  if it is possible for it to be fixed. Instead, I file this bug to draw
  your attention to the fact that the present upgrade process is very
  unreliable. If an upgrade is interrupted, it must not leave the system
  in a totally unusable state!

  As a Debian user it is extremely disappointing to see that you have
  taken the traditional and very reliable 'dist-upgrade' process, and
  replaced it with some weird, fragile upgrade script that requires
  working python and X installations.

  It is also frustrating that there is basically no end-user
  documentation for the upgrade process. The user gets a funny icon in
  their notification area, which they click on to trigger the upgrade
  script... but where are they presented with the release notes,
  including upgrade and recovery procedures? I'm talking about a
  document like Debian's: <http://www.debian.org/releases/lenny/i386
  /release-notes/ch-upgrading.en.html>.

  It is also very frustrating to see that the fragility of the ugprade
  process has not improved since I reported bug #108276 for the Feisty
  upgrade process, two years ago.

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