Upgrade from 8.04 to 10.04 LTS (BORKED)

[Liam Proven]

On 13 September 2010 03:19, NoOp <glgxg at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> On 09/12/2010 05:03 PM, Liam Proven wrote:
>> On 12 September 2010 22:09,  <clintin at linuxmail.org> wrote:
>>> This is not an option as there is no space to available to this plus there
>>> is over 30 GB of stuff on this 40 GB drive.  I really needed the update to
>>> work and preserve all the settings on this system.
>>
>> Backup all your stuff, then boot from a live CD, mount the hard disk,
>> and delete everything on it except /home and its contents. Be careful
>> not to delete the /home folder.
>
> Please don't suggest that. It's unnecessary and IMO quite harmful
> advise. What if the OP has packages installed in the /opt folders? For
> example, I have:
>
> $ ls /opt
> Adobe                JMF-2.1.1e                   openoffice.org
> BitDefender-scanner  jmf-2_1_1e-linux-i586GG.bin  openoffice.org3
> cycas39              ooo-dev
> google               ooo-dev3

Well, for one thing, 110.04 includes OpenOffice 3.2 so you can safely
discard a manually-installed copy. Which is in fact what I did myself
on 9.10; the install detected and removed my hand-installed version.

> Your suggestion would wipe out all of those. A proper inplace reinstall
> will preserve the /opt folders.
>
> Further, before any reinstall the OP should backup his sources.list
> (/etc/apt/sources.list) to a home folder file so that it can be moved
> back to /etc/apt/sources.list, as well as creating a Synaptic markerings
> file (File|Save Markings As| check 'Save full state, not only changes'),
> again to a home folder file so that he can restore his machine back to
> the state it was with all previously installed packages. I've currently
> 3,173 packages installed on this system - your advise would pretty much
> wipe most of those, screw up my Applications menus, and really, really
> piss me off after following your advise.
>
> If the OP does an inplace reinstall, preserving / and not formatting,
> then his /home and /opt folders will remain intact. The inplace
> reinstall will reinstall all of the critical sys files. You then restore
> your sources.list, and then reinstall the packages from the saved
> markings file (File|Read Markings). Give it a try & you'll see what I am
> referring to.

You seem to be missing the rather important detail that the OP *tried*
to do an in-place install and it has failed to complete. A second
attempt is even less likely to work.

The *reason* for doing a wipe-and-reinstall is that config files (or
something) are causing problems with an in-place upgrade. The
*benefit* of a wipe-and-reinstall is that it *gets rid* of all the
config files and mabnual customisations and resets you back to a clean
sheet, as it were.

I did point out that they would have to reinstall any extra programs and so on.

In other words, yes, you're right, but I considered these facts and
issues and factored them in to my suggestion.

But that's all it was. A suggestion.

What is your suggestion for rescuing a b0rked system that will not upgrade?

-- 
Liam Proven • Info & profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/lproven
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