update manager refuses to upgrade kernel to newer version

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Fri, 12 Feb 2016 17:21:05 +0100, Tom H wrote:
>On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 3:40 PM, Ralf Mardorf <silver.bullet at zoho.com>
>wrote:
>>
>> A workaround is described here:
>>
>> http://edoceo.com/notabene/grub-probe-error-cannot-find-device-for-root  
>
>Warning! The script on this page assumes that "/" is an extX
>filesystem on "/dev/sda1".

Important to me seems to be the idea to replace the bin by a script, if
people won't disable GRUB2's auto-crap. However, the OP seems not to 
need a bootloader at all.

On Fri, 12 Feb 2016 17:01:38 +0100, Oliver Grawert wrote:
>could be that update-manager/do-release-upgrade actually brings it
>back ... if in a modified chroot, better try "sudo apt-get
>dist-upgrade" ...

To avoid possible issues caused by Ubuntu tools, even if I don't have
any installed, I installed a dummy package. I didn't, but the OP could
hold/lock the package, so nothing could happen by accident. Without
holding/locking the package such an upgrade might bring grub in again.

The official linux-image-* packages recommend grub-pc or a replacement
package:

[root at moonstudio ~]# apt-cache showpkg linux-image-4.2.0-27-lowlatency
| grep grub 4.2.0-27.32 - initramfs-tools (18 0.36ubuntu6)
linux-initramfs-tool (0 (null)) kmod (0 (null)) dpkg (2 1.10.24)
fdutils (0 (null)) linux-doc-4.2.0 (16 (null)) linux-source-4.2.0 (0
(null)) linux-tools (0 (null)) linux-headers-4.2.0-27-lowlatency (0
(null)) grub-pc (16 (null)) grub-efi-amd64 (16 (null)) grub-efi-ia32
(16 (null)) grub (16 (null)) lilo (2 19.1) hotplug (3 0.0.20040105-1)
hotplug:i386 (3 0.0.20040105-1) linux-image-4.2.0-27-lowlatency:i386 (0
(null))

So my (for me unneeded) dummy package is for grub-pc:

[root at moonstudio ~]# dpkg -l *grub* | grep ii ii
grub-pc        2015:09-06-moonstudio all          Dummy package

Easy to build using equivs,

https://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/apt-howto/ch-helpers.en.html

Run

$ sudo -i
# equivs-control grub-pc

to get a file you could edit. Edit it to something similar to this:

[root at moonstudio ~]# cat /usr/src/dummies/grub-pc
Priority: optional
Standards-Version: 3.9.2

Package: grub-pc
Version: 2015:09-06-moonstudio
Maintainer: Weremouse <silver.bullet at zoho.com>
Architecture: all
Description: Dummy package



then run

# equivs-build

and after that install the package with dpkg.

Then you need to do, what I haven't done, hold/lock the package for all
tools you're using. If a package is hold/locked for apt-get, it not
necessarily is it for e.g. synaptic too.