Second System results of 8.04 LTS to 10.04.1 LTS Upgrade **STATUS UPDATE**

[Jonathan Dlouhy]

On 01/19/2011 06:05 PM, Jay Ridgley wrote:
>
>> Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:43:58 +0000
>> From: Colin Law<clanlaw at googlemail.com>
>> To: "Ubuntu user technical support, not for general discussions"
>> <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com>
>> Subject: Re: Second System results of 8.04 LTS to 10.04.1 LTS Upgrade
>> **MORE PROBLEMS**
>> Message-ID:
>> <AANLkTi=Qs3jVHqXY043LVjCEarJ2Xs9UHTiBs691yLy1 at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
>>
>> On 16 January 2011 23:55, Jay Ridgley<jridgley2 at austin.rr.com> wrote:
>>> Folks,
>>>
>>> While my first system worked very well doing the upgrade from 8.04
>>> LTS to
>>> 10.04.1 LTS. I have hit another snag and for the life of me I can't
>>> seem to
>>> get around it.
>>>
>>> The Upgrade attempts to download the packages and reports there is not
>>> enough space available and quits. It says to run "apt-get clean" to
>>> free up
>>> space. I did that and nothing happens. I have also gone though the
>>> installed
>>> packages and purged those that I know I do not need for the system in
>>> question. However that still did not yield enough space. Currently df
>>> shows
>>> the following information:
>>>
>>> /dev/sda1 3944620 1K blocks on the device 2848000 blocks used which
>>> leaves
>>> 897820 Available. The Update Manager wants some 1900MB more space!
>>>
>>> If I try to uninstall open-office (all of it, since I don't need it).
>>> Synaptic says that the ubuntu desktop and several other packages will be
>>> removed as well. Can I ignore those or will it cause serious problems?
>>
>> I don't think it is as serious as it sounds and it should be ok to
>> uninstall OO. Don't take me as authoritative on this however. Can
>> someone more knowledgeable confirm this?
>>
>>>
>>> The only other space on the physical drive is allocated to swap (it
>>> may be a
>>> bit large but I doubt that it is that big. Top reports swap to be
>>> 240932k
>>> total and currently shows 91840k free.
>>
>> Swap should only actually be used rarely. Are you short of RAM also?
>>
>>>
>>> /home contains only 49420 blocks (as reported by du -s)
>>>
>>> How can I obtain the required amount of space?
>>> --
>>
>> How big is your disk? you really need a minimum of about 8Gig altogether.
>> If overall disk space is the issue you may be able to get away with a
>> re-install rather than an upgrade, but it sounds as if you may be
>> pushing the machine to the limit. Perhaps it is time for a hardware
>> upgrade.
>>
>> Colin
>>
>>
> Folks,
>
> I have to admit that after several attempts to get this system upgraded
> to 10.04.1 LTS it is just not going to work.
>
> So I have gotten a replacement for it that should enable me to operate
> for several years.
>
> I have also done some research and have discovered that I have a lot to
> learn about the Debian Package Manager...
>
> I have used "dpkg --get-selections > installed-software-list" to get a
> list of installed packages that reside on my current system. I have also
> made a copy of the /etc directory and have a backup of /home.
>
> I also read that you can use the following to install the same packages
> on a new system:
>
> dpkg --set-selections < installed-software-list
>
> followed by
>
> deselect
>
> To install the packages listed.
>
> I have some remaining questions:
>
> 1. Where will dpkg get the packages to install? The new system is not
> running Ubuntu and is not on the net.
>
> 2. Should I copy/backup anything else?
>
> 3. Will a custom install from an distribution CD (got it burned and it
> works) be able to use the list from above?
>
> Thanks,
> Jay
>

Jay, I admire your persistence. Your system must be way more complicated 
than mine as I can do a fresh install and restore my files from backup 
in a couple of hours, max. Is there something preventing you from doing 
this? Or perhaps you're like me in that you don't like to be defeated by 
something, in which case I totally understand.

Jonathan