wireless problem with upgrade to 20.04 LTS / and live DVD installation for 22.04 failing

[David]

Hi Chris

thanks for your time.

The laptop on which I have been using Ubuntu, since around 2013 (and the laptop is older than that) is a Lenovo T400. It has working USB ports.

The version of Ubuntu that I am trying to install is the version for desktop PCs and laptops.

You reckon it could well be to do with using optical media.
It sounds like you're suggesting installation from USB or from putting the ISO file into a partition.
Can you recommend any sites or webpages that explain simply how to install by putting the ISO file onto a USB stick, or how to create a partition and get the ISO file into it and then run the installation?

Should the USB ports show up as an option when I hit F12 at startup, the way the optical drive does?

D'you reckon there's a good chance that the wireless problem will be gone if I were to do the online upgrade from 20.04 to 22.04? And is that as good as doing a clean install of 22.04?

Thank you

Dave

On Sat, Jul 2, 2022, at 12:03 PM, Chris Guiver wrote:
> G'day
>
> I'm involved with QA & in particular a flavor, if my background is helpful.
>
> You mention old hardware; I've used devices from 2003 and upwards in
> the QA; though i386 devices were not used beyond 19.04 except for
> respins of 18.04 (eg. 18.04.4 & 18.04.5)
>
>> Last week I decided to move up from 18.04 and tried the online Upgrade option for the first time (instead of a clean install from a live disk). The upgrade to 20.04 LTS completed, but I had no internet connection. I googled this and saw info about something called Netplan
>
> You didn't say if you're talking about a desktop system
> (NetworkManager) or server system (Netplan). The mention of netplan
> implies you're asking about a server system? but it could also be your
> misunderstanding.  Desktop systems use NetworkManager still; but it's
> best if you're specific & readers aren't having to guess.
>
>> So yesterday I burnt the 22.04 LTS ISO onto a brand-new rewritable DVD and tried to do a clean install, held down F12 at start up, chose the optical drive, selected “Try or Install Ubuntu”
>
> Here we get to potential problems... Changes were made starting with
> 20.10 that can have negative consequences for those using optical
> media (eg. DVD).  The optical media is designed for sequential
> reading, but the media verification reads files on a file-by-file type
> basis, and timeouts can occur with optical drives which can can
> problems (failed to start issues; particularly with snap..) etc.
> Reboot & re-try, and it may work the next time, as beyond being very
> slow, it's somewhat problematic as it's hardware timeouts that cause
> the issue/failures.
>
> In my QA testing, I used some really old IBM Thinkpads that didn't
> have working (bootable) USB ports; thus I'd download/write the ISO to
> a drive partition, and use that instead of USB media (installing to
> another part of the disk for example). Yes the laptops actually had
> DVD drives; but it was far easier/faster/reliable to use hard-drive
> over optical media. You might want to consider that instead of optical
> media (I would and did!)
>
> There is a bug report that will mitigate some of the issues with
> optical/slow media but it's not yet available for 22.04 (it maybe
> available using 22.04.1 media but unclear yet; that's still a month
> away). But I'm warning you'll have complications with optical media as
> it's not the intended installation media for Ubuntu releases beyond
> 20.04.
>
> Some effort is made to ensure it works (why the bug I mentioned exists
> & is being tracked or 22.04.1), but it's not high priority as almost
> no users use optical media & development resources are limited.
>
> You gave no details as to what hardware stack you were using for each
> release; as Ubuntu 20.04 LTS if using a GA kernel stack uses 5.4 which
> differs greatly to 22.04 (5.15), but if using 20.04 with HWE you'll be
> using either 5.13 (20.04.4) or 5.15 (20.04.5 that's rolling out ~now
> so if fully upgraded you maybe using 22.04's kernel stack already on
> 20.04). You may find using alternate kernel stack (easy) helps, though
> as 22.04 is still ~young, both GA & HWE are on the same stack so no
> choices there exist yet.
>
> On older devices in QA; I found the kernel stacks made a big
> difference; and as both stacks can co-exist on the same device (unless
> certain closed-source kernel modules are being used; aka video
> drivers) they were an easy fix for some users who had issues & sought
> support (eg. 18.04 with HWE uses the same kernel stack as found with
> 20.04 using the GA stack.. thus if it works with 18.04+HWE, I'd expect
> no issues with 20.04+GA)
>
> Installations using optical media are for sure possible; they just
> aren't easy & multiple attempts maybe required before it works; at
> least that's what was found in QA; also they're very slow (esp. beyond
> 20.10 as already stated).  I suggest avoiding using optical media for
> installs if you can.
>
> Chris g.
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