update && upgrade

[Jeffrey Walton]

On Wed, Feb 14, 2024 at 10:33 AM Jack Dangler <tdldev at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Good morning, all
>
> Attempting to fix the vbox fiasco... running apt-get update && apt-get
> upgrade (sudo)
>
> Getting this -
>
> Setting up gdm3 (42.0-1ubuntu7.22.04.4) ...
> debconf: DbDriver "config": /var/cache/debconf/config.dat is locked by
> another process: Resource temporarily unavailable
> dpkg: error processing package gdm3 (--configure):
>   installed gdm3 package post-installation script subprocess returned
> error exit status 1
> Errors were encountered while processing:
>   gdm3
> E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
>
> Not sure what would have locked debconf... Any input is appreciated.

When I have these unexplained problems with updates and upgrades, it
is usually due to Snap taking up all the storage space on a VM. I had
to clear them 4 times this month on Ubuntu 20.04 and Ubuntu 22.04. (My
VMs usually have 12 GB of storage, which is enough for the OS install
and installation of components I am testing).

The steps I use:

    systemctl stop snapd.service
    systemctl disable snapd.service
    systemctl disable snapd.socket
    rm -rf /var/snap/*
    reboot

After gutting Snap and rebooting, you can get onto fixing the Apt
database, and running update and upgrade.

I have encountered problems with GDM like this. But usually GDM won't
start because Snap took all the storage space. Once Snap is neutered,
GDM will restart after a reboot.

Jeff