[Bug 1945111] [NEW] Switching proprietary drivers on a not up-to-date system breaks it badly

[Michael Zanetti]

Public bug reported:

When a system is not fully up to date, mainly when there's a kernel
update available, software-properties-gtk still allows to switch
drivers, for example switching between nvidia drivers.

Doing so will cause it to update the kernel, but not do a full upgrade.
After the operation software-properties-gtk will suggest to reboot the
machine and most likely cause the user to just do so.

The problem with that is that linux-modules-extras will not be installed
now and after the reboot the user is left with a broken system: Non-
functioning graphics (well, llvmpipe still does if lucky) and what's
even worse, no network drivers and depending on the machine maybe even
without input device support. This will cause the user to require a
second machine and a USB stick (and quite some knowledge) to recover the
system.

I've ran into this a couple of times now, seems reproducible. It is
quite tricky to get out of this which IMO makes this a somewhat critical
bug.

** Affects: software-properties (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Undecided
         Status: New

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1945111

Title:
  Switching proprietary drivers on a not up-to-date system breaks it
  badly

Status in software-properties package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  When a system is not fully up to date, mainly when there's a kernel
  update available, software-properties-gtk still allows to switch
  drivers, for example switching between nvidia drivers.

  Doing so will cause it to update the kernel, but not do a full
  upgrade. After the operation software-properties-gtk will suggest to
  reboot the machine and most likely cause the user to just do so.

  The problem with that is that linux-modules-extras will not be
  installed now and after the reboot the user is left with a broken
  system: Non-functioning graphics (well, llvmpipe still does if lucky)
  and what's even worse, no network drivers and depending on the machine
  maybe even without input device support. This will cause the user to
  require a second machine and a USB stick (and quite some knowledge) to
  recover the system.

  I've ran into this a couple of times now, seems reproducible. It is
  quite tricky to get out of this which IMO makes this a somewhat
  critical bug.

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