[ubuntu-uk] update/upgrade issues and help - was12.04 has locked me out of my account

[Alan Pope]

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On 04/05/12 00:59, Barry Drake wrote:
> On 04/05/12 08:19, Alan Pope wrote:
>> What specific investigations have led you to believe that update 
>> manager is the issue? I'm not trying to labour the point, but
>> just illustrate that one mans fix is another mans cop-out.
> 
> The specific issues were very often missing data, programs that
> had worked before the upgrade and either had been removed druring
> the upgrade or were broken.

Ok, so this can be caused by numerous reasons, often times not
update-manager's fault as such, but the state of the system before the
upgrade started. For example sometimes people remove critical packages
from Ubuntu and then when they try to upgrade it all falls apart
because some crucial component is missing - like the "ubuntu-desktop"
metapackage.

One interestingly useful command which 'fixes' many issues relating to
bits missing is this:-

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop^

(note the caret on the end). This causes apt to attempt to install the
ubuntu-desktop task which pulls in everything needed for the current
release. It's surprising how many times this actually pulls in
critical components that the user has inadvertently removed in the past.

> But a lot of problems caused by compiz crash etc were fixed by
> getting the user to change to 2D.  A bit messy as many users had
> opted for no password at login ....  most of those were able to get
> the login method changed OK and opt for 2D.
> 

Unity and compiz crashes can often be attributed to users messing with
compizconfig-settings-manager or sometimes just bugs. I find dropping
to a shell (CTRL+ALT+F1) and issuing this command often helps reset
things back to normal:-

unity --reset &

> The reason I looked at Ubuntu answers in the first place was simply
> to see where people are told to go on the Ubuntu website.  If that
> is no longer the best place to go for help, the website ought to
> reflect that surely?
> 

It's a matter of opinion really. Everyone has their favourite support
site, be that mailing lists, irc, askubuntu, answers, forums.. Each to
their own. Personally Askubuntu beats all of them for numerous reasons.

Cheers,
- -- 
Alan Pope
Engineering Manager

Canonical - Product Strategy
+44 (0) 7973 620 164
alan.pope at canonical.com
http://ubuntu.com/
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