The upgrade did not go so well. Actually, that’s an understatement. It went horribly, horribly wrong.
Here’s how everything went down:
Per the instructions on the Ubuntu web site, I followed the upgrade notes for a network installation to the letter.
During the upgrade process, it timed out at least a dozen times. This is totally understandable since it was the first day of release and the servers were getting hammered like crazy, so I just dealt with it and reinitialized the update manager whenever it timed out. No big deal. The manager simply picked up where it left off and didn’t re-download everything each time (nice perk).
Being that it was going to take a really long time for all this stuff to complete, I just let the computer sit and retrieve the files it needed to apply them once the time-outs stopped. Then I went to bed.
When I woke up this morning I go to take a look and there was an error. The network applet had some type of issue and said it "could not continue" and ended with an OK button. However, the update did complete. Again, no big deal.
The cleanup process started and finished without issue.
Ubuntu then prompted to reboot. All righty then, let’s go. I click the button to restart.
Here’s what happened on restart:
The system starts. First it states that 8.04 is still there on my dual-boot setup.
"Wha..?"
Um.. okay. That shouldn’t be there – and there’s no 8.10 choices. I figured maybe it just didn’t rewrite the menu.lst file? I have no idea.
I go to boot. Splash screen comes up, finishes, and…
No GUI.
It tries, the screen blinks a few times (that’s the GUI trying to load) and then…
Nothing. Black screen. No prompt.
I ctrl-alt-del, the OS stops the services and reboots properly. I choose to go into "recovery mode" to see if I can manually get the GUI started from the prompt.
I get to a prompt, manually try to start the GUI, and…
Nothing. Blink, blink, blink… prompt.
This is not good.
The GUI absolutely would not start no matter what I did. It wouldn’t even default to a "safe" mode (where the graphics suck but at least it starts so you can fix it later).
It didn’t matter if I deleted my conf file for X because and did startx from a prompt because X simply decided "I’m not working. Sorry. You lose."
My Ubuntu install is now unusable. X wasn’t playing nice and nothing I did would get it to start.
And for you Linux zealots that say "RECONFIG FROM THE PROMPT!" This is supposed to be an easy network upgrade. I have no time to be messing around at a prompt for something that should have been 100% automatic with no screw-ups.
In short, my Ubuntu was FUBAR.
~ ~ ~
At this point I still want to get 8.10 on the system, so I boot into a "Live" mode to see what I can do. I can’t do a full guided install because XP Pro is still on the other partition.
So into the Partition Manger I go (GParted).
From there I just delete the Ubuntu partition stuff, make a new ext3 with the free space left and that did the trick. Wrote the partition, started the install and the guided portion of the installation liked that just fine and resized everything appropriately.
At that point I installed 8.10. Went thru without a hitch.
On reboot, now it looks proper. I see my 8.10 choices and the XP Pro choice on first boot.
I boot into Ubuntu and it’s fine. No problems at all. Booted right up. No fuss, no muss.
~ ~ ~
This was the first (and most likely last) time I will ever attempt to upgrade an OS solely by means of internet if I have the choice. It just didn’t work after it was done. Everything transferred over but somewhere along the line some scripts didn’t finish, or maybe some files got corrupt during transfer.
I have no idea what happened – and to be honest I don’t care. All I know is that I followed the instructions exactly, and it failed miserably.
The next time I upgrade Ubuntu I’m absolutely not doing a network install. I was able to wipe out my existing 8.04 install for 8.10 because it was less than a week old so I didn’t lose anything.
But if this were a primary install with lots of data on it, yeah I would have been able to retrieve from a live mode and backup appropriately, but said honestly I would have been 100% ticked off.
~ ~ ~
Even with this bad experience of upgrading, I’m still using Ubuntu anyway. I wanted to see if I could actually upgrade an entire OS with internet and internet alone. Well.. that didn’t work – but that’s okay. It was cool to try.
You live and learn I guess. My lesson learned is that it is better to upgrade an operating system using physical media.
IMPORTANT NOTE: My experience is (probably) going to be extremely isolated. I can pretty much guarantee that almost nobody else is going to have the problems I did. Do not take this article as a reason not to attempt an upgrade or not to use Ubuntu.
However I would recommend not doing it the internet way. Using the Alternative CD/DVD method is the way to go.
My own experience of the upgrade, although not free of problems, was a lot less troublesome.
I have a fast broadband connection and as such, the download took less than 15 mins. There was a problem with one of the applets (Evolution)and once all was done and dusted,I had to reinstall a couple of drivers.
All in all, I think it went well !!
I’ve been using gnu/linux for years and have messed around with Ubuntu since the 5.10 release. I’m not a Linux expert to any measure, but I’m comfortable working for the shell and have had my experiences with bad installations over the years (but only one Ubuntu). I’ve always managed to fix problems (eventually). I’ve also had success doing upgrades. Additionally, I run newer hardware all from major vendors–not bleeding edge but none of it more than a year and half old–so hardware should never be an issue. This is all to say that if I’m not pleased with this migration to 8.10, many people are suffering similar problems. I’m not pleased.
I began with an upgrade only to get stalled running local boot scripts, I tried launching x from a virtual terminal to no avail. Eventually I just gave up rather than waste my whole night. I moved on to a clean install. This got me up and running but I wasn’t able to get nvidia drivers installed. The depositories lacked vlc, stunnel, pan…I stopped looking for the rest. I have a feeling this may partially have been due to server congestion? Whatever. Again, I’d now wasted another hour and had a crappy looking box. So I turned to the Ubuntu forums.
Lots of defensive recriminations from diehards telling people not to rant (STFU please). Another common rebuttal to an angry upgrader was along the lines “I can’t understand why you would even try upgrading to a none LTS release if your were concerned about performance.” Okay, these jackasses must not remember that we used not to have LTS releases…they were called releases. I’ve never noticed a difference in quality between the two types, I simply figured the additional support was meant to help businesses move to Ubuntu. Apparently regular releases are now to be viewed as betas. Good to know. Now why not call them that?????
I’m back to a fresh install of 8.04 which, I’m once more happy with. But, I like updating to get new functionality. I don’t do experimental, alpha, or beta or overnight builds specifically because even though I like new features, I like a working system first and foremost. I thought canonical was directing this rapid release schedule to allow EXACTLY this to happen. I.e, I may not get the very latest and greatest with an ubuntu, but I get stability in the major releases. This did not happen this time.
I’m furious for wasting my time. This was a disaster and has to be changed in the future. As of now, for any of you considering an 8.10 install…don’t do it. Even if you don’t have another install, do 8.04.1 and update it (do NOT upgrade to 8.10). My system couldn’t be more straight forward…1 drive, nvidia card (specifically chosen for linux support), no wireless card, nvidia chipset, x2 athlon, 1 gb of memory, running the i386 build (don’t like worrying about support for A64 compile).
Don’t believe me? Check out the Ubuntu install forums (although threads are supposedly being locked and deleted). 8.10 is not ready.
Hi there,
Rich your not alone, this exactly I repeat exactly what happened to me during the upgrade process. I’m just downloading the Ubuntu 8.10 iso now to start a fresh install.
Neil
Said honestly I wish I was the only one who had install issues like I did. To hear someone else had identical problems is not good.
Hi Rich,
I was leery about doing the upgrade because I have one of the ATI Radeon 9550 video cards that they were saying aren’t working properly. I followed the instructions in the release notes (disabling the Hardware driver) and performed the upgrade from the Upgrade Manager.
Aside from it asking me to keep or replace some customized scripts, I had no problems at all. Of course I also waited until the second or third day after it was released, so that may have been a factor.
In fact I even activated the driver that Ubuntu recommended from ATI for my card, and it worked perfectly. Now, I just need to get my MSI [email protected] to show up properly, so I can get MythTV to work.
I haven’t looked at your entire post to see if you checked into the known issues and release notes. If not, I would suggest that and try again. If you have, then I would suggest trying it again and filing bugs for everything that you encounter. If they’re duplicated, then you’ll just emphasize that it needs to be fixed, and add more information that may help solve the problems.
Plus, by now they may have the kinks worked out of the upgrade process.
Have a great day:)
Patrick.
Same problem here.
Tried upgrade, no X. Bizarrely, I would get the GUI boot screen, but instead of the X login screen just the prompt.
Read your post and reinstalled from live CD. Worked like charm! Installed all my software and reboot – perfect! Then update and reboot – no X!!! Tried all the above tricks, can’t get a GUI. What’s going on?
Sorry to hear about you mishap, but you just demonstrated why many say Ubuntu is no good, shoddy installing. Here’s the magic secrets: 1 You MUST download the complete ISO with Firefox + Downthemall, a top download manager, for a good MD5. 2 test MD5 with Hashtab. 3 Burn & verify with Imagburn, then check the MD5 of the disc. 4 provide an executive directory of 10GB, for safety. 5 Be absolutely obsessive with a perfect install, so you can only do this from a perfect disc.
Regards Bill.