upgrading Gutsy to Hardy, remotely .... advice and precautions?

[H.S.]

NoOp wrote:

> 
> If he runs into desktop issues you'll not likely be able to talk to his
> system via remote. SSH perhaps, but most likely not via remote desktop.
> So, I'd make sure that ssh is installed and working before you start.
> Test by logging in using the -X command:
> ssh -X <hisusername>@<hisIPaddress>
> Then while connected via ssh, make sure that you can open his remote
> desktop preferences:
> 
> $ vino-preferences
> 
> That will bring up (on your side) the same as if you were to
> System|Preferences|Remote Desktop at his desktop.
> 
> Note: you will not be able to do any -X functions if his desktop is
> borked, but if networking & ssh is working you'd still be able to use
> the standard terminal to try and fix the issue.
> 
>> - Then install the packages that were earlier removed and update the system.
> 
> 

Okay, so I did the upgrade just now. Main things:

- As I mentioned earlier, we instructed the upgrade manager /not/ to use
packages from internet.
- He had some language packs installed (language support), I had to
remove those otherwise the upgrade did not proceed during the initial
stages ... some sort of packages mismatch (I just removed the offending
packages to keep this simple, otherwise I probably would have had to use
the internet method).
- The upgrade went well for the most part (had to make a decision
whether to install the new version of scim conf file).
- SSH was previously installed and continued working out of the box
after the reboot; no interruption in SSH at all. BTW, I am running the
remote desktop through an SSH tunnel, always do for security.
- Fortunately, skype continued to work right till the reboot and after
the reboot too.
- Also, remote desktop continue working right till the reboot and after
the reboot as well without any change at all. Very nice!
- Networking was also not a problem at all, but it was simple to begin
with: just a fixed wired lan ip address.
- Possible bug: after the upgrade and before telling the user to reboot,
the upgraded does not tell the user to take out the CDROM from the tray
and the computer then reboots using that CDROM and start the Ubuntu
installer! Of course, this depends on the BIOS settings. But the dist
upgrade application should have notified the user to extract the CD.

Other than these, some desktop tweaks were required to get the original
settings, primarily the screen resolution.

All in all, the procedure went well.

The next step is to do the update now.

Thanks a ton for the feedback. I hope this thread is useful to others in
a similar situation.

Regards.
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