An "interesting" thing happened this morning

[Snowhog]

Interesting is the politically correct euphemism for CRAP!

So what happened? Well, on my laptop that has 12.10, this morning, it wouldn't boot. Got the grub menu, but when I selected the kernel to boot, it sat on the screen and the CAPS and SCROLL LOCK lights just started (and kept) blinking. Long story short, I 'lost' my root partition! Good thing I keep a log of all that I do with package management. I downloaded the current 12.10 32-bit ISO and burned it to a USB stick. Booted from it and installed Kubuntu, keeping my /home partition (which was fully intact/accessible), then with my logs, went through the process of installing all the packages I had before.

I'm back in business, with all the glory of 12.10 running KDE 4.10.00

Murphy's Law

If it can go wrong, it will.
If it hasn't gone wrong, it will.

[dmeyer]

Notice a trend recently? Lots of updates have gone poorly for people. Wander what the reason for all this mayhem has been...

Anybody have ideas/theories?

[Snowhog]

In my case, I believe it was either the result of purging the linux-image-extra* kernels (two of them), or the fact that I was using btrfs file system for the root partition, which I setup when I first installed 12.10 using the 29 Sep 2012 Daily Build. I also had (then) installed, as I'm apt, grub to the root partition instead of the MBR. Council says that it isn't a good idea to install Grub to a btrfs partition. Well, either way, I lost the root partition. Have no idea how, as I was using that laptop last night. I shut down as normal, and this morning, no system to boot from.

But as I said, it's all fixed again. Took about two hours+.

[woodsmoke]

I'm sorry it happened SnowHog, been there, done that meseff!

AND, one reason why I always make an "extra save" of ANY AND ALL DATA....to a usb stick, and then regularly move that to an external HD and thence to a cdrom or DVD.

And, btw, Knoppix on a usb stick is a life saver also! lol

woodsmoke

[james147]

Notice a trend recently? Lots of updates have gone poorly for people. Wander what the reason for all this mayhem has been...

Anybody have ideas/theories?

That always happens for a new kubuntu or kde release on kubuntu... not enough testers volunteer before the release dates

[dmeyer]

That always happens for a new kubuntu or kde release on kubuntu... not enough testers volunteer before the release dates

Probably true. I never really test pre-releases of KDE for Kubuntu but I do test new Kubuntu versions in a VM but I always do fresh installs and not upgrades. The fresh installs always go just fine but upgrades don't.

[Detonate]

I think that very few testers would test the upgrade method. If installing an alpha or beta of a new distro, they almost certainly would do a clean install. I got burned using the upgrade method a long time ago, and have never used it again.

[dmeyer]

I think that very few testers would test the upgrade method. If installing an alpha or beta of a new distro, they almost certainly would do a clean install. I got burned using the upgrade method a long time ago, and have never used it again.

Kubuntu upgrades always go wrong for me so I've just given up on them permanently. The biggest pain I'm willing to endure is the KDE upgrades.

[jglen490]

Oddly, considering the weak platform I have, the upgrade path has been the least painful - atleast for the past 3 - 4 installs. There's always something funky going on with every upgrade, but the upgrade to Precise went so well I thought it hadn't happened. I have to admit that with the last two upgrades, I waited to let the dust settle. A PIII 700 mhz with 512MB of RAM is not a great place to play with the unknown The Savage video system on this machine has long since passed its prime. Yes, I am looking at a hardware upgrade, too.