[xubuntu-users] 14.04 stopped working

[Ralf Mardorf]

On Thu, 12 Nov 2015 13:43:49 -0800, John R. Sowden wrote:
>First I switched from my backup computer to the one with the problem 
>that is ok now.

Hi John,

does "ok" mean that you

- get back the desktop with the panel
- that you've got enough disk space to upgrade

?

Roughly speaking, if the software satisfies your needs, then upgrading
not necessarily is needed, unless the computer is connected to the
Internet.

Computers connected to the Internet need security upgrades to fix
security vulnerabilities and upgrades of the certificates.

The policy of the release model distro Ubuntu and it's flavours and
especially that of the LTS release is to retain stability and
work-flow, by not providing unnecessary upgrades, so assumed the
upgrades are not caused by a PPA (third party repository), then you
should upgrade regarding security issues. However, while upgrades from
official Ubuntu repositories shouldn't break anything from the official
repositories, upgrades from a PPA could seriously damage your install,
but upgrading the official supported packages, without upgrading the
packages from a PPA, could seriously damage the PPA supported packages.

>command 1:
>apt-get autoremove
>Reading package lists... Done
>Building dependency tree
>Reading state information... Done
>0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 148 not upgraded.
>
>command 2:
>apt-get update
>
>command 3:
>apt-get install -f
>Reading package lists... Done
>Building dependency tree
>Reading state information... Done
>0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 156 not upgraded.

After running

 sudo apt-get update

I would compare the output of

 sudo apt-get upgrade --dry-run

and

 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade --dry-run

with and without PPAs and other third party repositories enabled.

"upgrade
    Used to install the newest versions of all packages currently
installed on the system from the sources enumerated
in /etc/apt/sources.list(5). Packages currently installed with new
versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no circumstances
are currently installed packages removed, nor are packages that are not
already installed retrieved and installed. New versions of currently
installed packages that cannot be upgraded without changing the install
status of another package will be left at their current version. An
update must be performed first so that apt-get knows that new versions
of packages are available.
dist-upgrade
     In addition to performing the
function of upgrade, this option also intelligently handles changing
dependencies with new versions of packages; apt-get has a "smart"
conflict resolution system, and it will attempt to upgrade the most
important packages at the expense of less important ones, if
necessary." - http://linux.die.net/man/8/apt-get

Regards,
Ralf