Problems Updating Lubuntu 12.04, 12.10, and 13.04 on Slow Machines

[Yorvyk]

On 13/04/13 18:28, Aere Greenway wrote:
> All:
>
> I have been observing a problem where on slow (450 megahertz)
> machines, the software updater window disappears, and the updates
> are applied in the background, with no notification of completion.
>
> I tried applying updates using terminal commands:
>
> sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade
>
> These would start out with me being able to see what was going on,
> but it would come back to the command prompt during the trigger
> processing (and new commands could be entered), while processing
> continued in the background.  Again, there was no notification of
> completion.
>
I've not had this problem with 12.04, only with the newer version of
update manager and even then it's not consistent in it's behaviour.
I've had it work with 450MHz and 384MiB of RAM and fail with 2.4GUz and
1GiB of RAM.  Surprisingly the disappearing terminal problem doesn't 
occur in synaptic.


> More updates were available recently, so I tried it again on my 450
> megahertz machine.
>
> I used the terminal commands (as above), and the output was
> encouraging, because I could see the progress of what was going on.
>
> But then it got to the mkinitramfs step, and control returned to the
> command-prompt (I could enter commands), without it proceeding
> farther.
>
> Repeating the "sudo apt-get upgrade" step responded with something
> about the (new kernel) change being "held-back".
>
> This made me lose all trust in the terminal method of updating,
> because when I apply updates, I want them all to be applied - not
> just some of them.
>
All the updates were applied. The kernel is a new package and apt-get
upgrade doesn't install or remove any software. What you needed was
apt-get dist-upgrade, which will install new packagesand remove
conflictinf ones if required.  Update-manager does the same as 
dist-upgrade. Even then, packages can be held back if the full set of 
dependencies hasn't reached the server when you try to do an update.


> So I ran the software updater, and it showed that the kernel update
> still needed to be applied.
>
> The cursor on the software updater window showed as being busy, and
> stayed that way for a long time.  I clicked the "Apply Updates"
> button (or whatever it is called), but that never seemed to get
> going, and at one point the software updater crashed.
>
> I was hopeful I could submit a crash report, but updating appeared
> to be going on in the background, and apport was consuming a lot of
> memory, to the point that constant swapping started to occur.  I
> finally (reluctantly) had to kill the apport task, and (eventually)
> the software updater task as well.
>
> At this point, I feared I had lost this particular system.
>
> On rebooting, if I ran the software updater, it showed that the
> kernel updates still needed to be applied, but the cursor on the
> software updater window remained busy, for a really long time.
>
> A check of the Task Manager window showed Update Manager using time,
> as well as apt-check.
>
> Remembering an earlier e-mail about an apt-check (correction - that
> e-mail said "dpkg") needing to complete (and taking as long as 90
> minutes to do so), I left it running, and went to do something else.
>
> When I returned a half-hour later, the CPU-usage was back to an idle
> state, and the cursor (when on the software updater window) was no
> longer 'busy'.
>
> So I clicked the "Apply Updates" button, and 30 seconds or so later,
> I was presented with a dialog box to enter my password, which I did.
>
> But as before, after awhile, the software updater window
> disappeared.
>
> But the Task Manager window showed processes running that I could
> identify as part of the updating process (such as mkinitramfs), so I
> just watched it.
>
> Eventually (after a long time), the CPU-usage went back to an
> idle-state.  Again, there was no notification of completion.
>
> When I ran the software updater at that point, it (after checking
> for updates) said that a reboot was required for updates to finish,
> which I proceeded to do, and now the system appears to be properly
> updated.
>
> That's a long story, but with some precision in the description of
> what happened.
>
> So anyway, here is my description of the problem, and what ought to
> happen:
>
> Problem: On slow machines (450 megahertz, single-processor, 512 meg
> RAM), when you run the software updater, the software updater window
> disappears, yet updates seem to get applied in the background. There
> is no notification of the completion of this process.
>
> 1. The software updater window should not disappear.  It should be
> possible to monitor the progress of applying the updates.
>
> 2. There should be some notification of the completion of the update
> process, if for some reason it /has/ to run in the background.
>
> 3. There is a lengthy step performed by the software updater
> (apt-check) which runs for a long time (30 minutes, for example).
> While it is running, the software updater is not actually usable. If
> you click the "Apply Updates" button during this time, you only cause
> more problems. There is no progress-meter display.  The application
> appears to be hung.  CPU-usages is at 100%, so it appears the system
> is hung.  This should not happen - really.
 >
This has been made worse by the inclusion of Jockey which checks for 
proprietary driver updates.

>
> Summary:
>
> On slow machines, the method of applying software updates is broken,
> and not something an ordinary user can deal with, or use with any
> real chance of success.
>
> If you can't update your system, then you system is not supported -
> despite what the website may claim.
>
> I have submitted a bug-report for this, but it has been declared
> "invalid" because my machine doesn't have a speed of 1 gigahertz,
> with 1 gigabytes of RAM - despite the fact that I was using Lubuntu.
>
> Here is a link to the bug-report:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1159589 Title: When applying
> software updates, updater window disappears
>
I'll click the effect me too bit but I can't see much been done. I just 
teach people to use the terminal, although I'm sure a simple launcher 
could be made to launch a terminal and run the required commands


--
Steve