problems with 10.04 upgrade to 12.04

[Marius Gedminas]

On Wed, Sep 05, 2012 at 11:19:02AM +0100, Dave Howorth wrote:
> Marius Gedminas wrote:
> > First of all, what is a graphical display manager doing on a server?
> 
> It's not a real server it's a test machine. One of its functions is
> testing the website. The quid pro quo for my boss using a sometimes
> flaky site is that he gets useful information from it the rest of the
> time :)
> 
> > I've added a comment to the bug in Launchpad asking for some additional
> > information that would be necessary to track this bug down.  It would be
> > helpful for others if you could do what I asked there (edit the postinst
> > script to increase verbosity by using set -ex, then re-run dpkg
> > --configure -a and attach the output to the bug).
> 
> I've done that and posted the output as requested.

Thank you!  I think I've identified the bug and a possible fix.  I've
added the lxdm package to the bug, let's see if the
maintainer/maintainers react.

> > Anyway, the quickest path to a fully functional machine would be to
> > sidestep the bug by removing the lxdm package:
> > 
> >   sudo apt-get remove lxdm
> 
> Sadly apt-get seems to be one of the programs that has problems in the
> machine's current state. So it failed. I've attached the output of the
> command above to the bug report.

Oh, right, because of the dependencies.  Of course.  I should've
realized that, sorry!

Can try to fix the postinst script in place, like I suggested in my last
bug comment:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lxdm/+bug/1045285/comments/28

after which you should be able to complete the upgrade with

  sudo apt-get -f install
  sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

If that works, can you confirm that my suggested fix worked in that bug
conversation?

If that doesn't work, there's still the alternative approach of removing
the lxdm package altogether.  Since apt-get remove is unhappy, you can
use the lower-level dpkg tool (which doesn't enforce package
dependencies) to remove lxdm instead:

     sudo dpkg --remove lxdm

after which apt-get -f install *should* be able to fix the dependency
situation, and apt-get dist-upgrade should be able to complete the
upgrade.

> I'm not very familiar with the debian/ubuntu package system (for that
> matter, I try to be just a user of the rpm-based package systems on the
> other distros I use).

That's a very reasonable attitude, IMHO.  The downside, of course, is
that you end up having to rely on random volunteers on the Internet to
solve any problems, or cash out for a support contract from Canonical or
some other support provider.  ;-)

Marius Gedminas
-- 
Python 2.4.3 (#2, Apr 27 2006, 14:43:58)
>>> "abc".count("", 100)
-96
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 190 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-users/attachments/20120905/b725bb43/attachment.sig>