Please try to get it right in future

[Robert Brimhall]

I actually had a problem with a recent kernel upgrade. Grub was set up
to boot a kernel with a .dpkg extension (2.6.8.1-3.dpkg or something
to that effect)... I had to remove the entry from grub and another
default kernel. Not sure if this is related in any way but I didn't do
a "smart" update either and I'm still not sure what that is exactly
not being used to package managers after several months of using
Slackware. How does one do a "smart" update? I'm just asking... not
trying to be confrontational or anything... Thanks.

Robert


On Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:27:40 -0700, Matt Zimmerman <mdz at canonical.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Oct 16, 2004 at 11:21:38PM +0300, Andy Jarvis wrote:
> 
> > A week or so back, I executed a Synaptic smart update, as is my wont on
> > a fairly daily basis. I noted that, due to some discrepancy between main
> > program and lib, Evolution was to my horror uninstalled.
> 
> That's the difference between a "smart" upgrade and a normal one: you are
> explicitly telling Synaptic that it is OK to add and remove some packages in
> order to upgrade others.
> 
> > A subsequent reinstall put it back with moderate inconvenience. This week
> > however a more serious failure occured. On Tuesday evening I carried out a
> > Synaptic smart update and a new version of the K7 kernel was installed.
> > Nothing over which to raise eyebrows. That evening I shut down my PC and
> > went to bed. The next afternoon I switched on same PC and Linux, to be
> > precise Ubuntu Linux, failed to boot. The problem transpired in that all
> > the initrd files had been deleted, the Grub menu.lst had even been
> > scrubbed of references to initrd and I was in the wilderness.
> 
> My first guess would be that the upgrade failed for some reason (perhaps you
> ran out of disk space), but you didn't notice, and rebooted anyway,
> resulting in a broken system.  This has happened to other users in the past.
> 
> Exactly the same kernel was installed on a large number of other Ubuntu
> systems without incident, so it is not simply broken.
> 
> Also note that unless you explicitly removed it, you still have the kernel
> which was installed when you first installed Ubuntu, selectable from the
> grub menu.
> 
> > I booted into my BeOS partition and sent a help request to the user list,
> > with a reply that indicated the symptom of the problem - no initrd
> > command. True. When I asked for a solution, the reply came: run a
> > dpkg-reconfigure against the kernel version. How to do this when I
> > couldn't boot into Linux? Next reply: same way you viewed the menu.lst.
> > Well one way was by mounting the Linux partition in BeOS and reading
> > (Linux partitions are of course read only in BeOS) the other way is to
> > view the code within the Grub bootloader. Again all is read only and Shell
> > commands as such cannot be executed.
> >
> > When I requested further help, such as whether there exists a boot floppy
> > image from which I could repair the problem or whether the Ubuntu install
> > process has been fixed to allow non-destructive install (i.e. a repair
> > rather than complete re-install) I was met with utter silence.
> 
> I regret that the support that you received at no cost has not been
> sufficient for your needs.  Paid support options are available if you
> require a higher level of service.
> 
> > The simple facts are these. You can, under the partitioning section of the
> > install, select to use an existing Linux partition without formatting, but
> > the install WILL fail. So my problem could only be "solved" by a total
> > re-install of Ubuntu Linux. I lost all existing data and configuration
> > information.
> 
> That is not the only way to solve the problem, but it was the simplest for
> you.
> 
> > There has been no other solution offered. And as far as I can tell, it was
> > all caused by a rogue release to the repository of a new version of the
> > Linux kernel.
> 
> No, it was not.
> 
> > My point with all this is that there remain some significant problems to
> > be resolved. I very much hope that they will be resolved and I look
> > forward to the day when I can truly depend on my Ubuntu installation as my
> > OS of preference. So far I have had 4 of the releases since the first back
> > in mid-September, and have carried out 4 complete installations on the
> > same machine, indeed the same partition. If I am to be able to rely on
> > Ubuntu, I should never have to carry out a 5th install, but hope very much
> > to be able to maintain an ongoing update process to keep my system
> > current.
> 
> Not a single other Ubuntu user has reported such a problem to my knowledge,
> and your account has not contained enough information to diagnose the
> problem.  Unfortunately, no one is currently available to walk you through a
> more detailed debugging session.
> 
> > Best of luck to the team responsible for the most significant (and
> > certainly the most headline-grabbing Linux distribution to date). My plea:
> > do not rest on your laurels but continue to improve and perfect this
> > excellent OS.
> 
> We will.
> 
> --
>  - mdz
> 
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