#1 Complaint about Ubuntu: Updates break things

[Steve Langasek]

On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 12:46:28PM -0500, Cody A.W. Somerville wrote:

>  After getting yet another phone call from one of the many average, everyday
> users I know using Ubuntu about how after downloading and installing yet
> another mammoth load of updates on her Ubuntu machine, running a stable,
> supported release, her computer crashed with the following scary message,
> I've decided to write this e-mail.

> Aborted because of invalid compressed format (err=2)
> >
> Kernel Panic: SYNCING VFS, unable to mount root fs on unknown-block.
> >

Please note the procedure documented in
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates#Procedure> for handling
SRU regressions that reach -updates.  Regressions *are* a serious business,
and will be handled seriously by the SRU team, but we have to be told about
them in order to act.

The error message listed above sounds like an initramfs loading error at
boot time.  I'm not sure how that could come to pass as a consequence of an
SRU; do you have any more information about this?

Given that such a problem was not detected during the SRU verification
process, we definitely need more information here: what release the user is
running, what kernel update was most recently installed, probably a list of
all updates applied since the last reboot.

-- 
Steve Langasek                   Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS
Debian Developer                   to set it on, and I can move the world.
Ubuntu Developer                                    http://www.debian.org/
slangasek at ubuntu.com                                     vorlon at debian.org