Let down by Linux, episode 3246346

[thedarkproject]

Today I decided to upgrade Kubuntu from 7.04 to 7.10, and wondered what problem I'd hit this time. Answer: it runs into this lovely bug, where the installer crashes, apparently due to version mismatches between the C runtime libraries and the Perl language. The fact that these are 2 of the most commonly used and tested parts of the operating system has not stopped this problem from arising, nor has it meant anybody has been able to fix it in the year it's been known about. *sigh*

Now I have to try and work out how to get around it. A fun way to spend a day off.

EDIT: I managed to grab all the packages at the command line and install them as intended. Then I rebooted, and it now hangs at 'running local boot scripts (/etc/rc.local). If I switch to another terminal, and try to run 'startx', it fails with the 'no screens' error that means it's trashed your drivers and/or settings. Disappointing but not at all surprising.

Comments

[thedarkproject]

What, wait three weeks to download a DVD iso from one of their servers which tend to give me a mighty 5Kb per second over a 10mbit line?

[thedarkproject]

I don't use BitTorrent... I've generally no use for it given that I don't get any illegal downloads. I think I have Gutsy (7.10) fully installed now, but obviously it failed to upgrade my settings, as is usually the case with any flavour of Linux I try. I expect that if I reinstalled over the top it would just trash the settings I'd rather keep, and if I went for an upgrade it would probably do precisely nothing...

[josephbaxter.livejournal.com]

I would stick with gutsy I had issues with hardy... totally trashed the ati driver.. and compiz is s**te in kde

[thedarkproject]

Would love to stick with Gutsy... if I can get it to boot up properly. I'm planning to reboot and try "dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg", since it might just be failing to start the xserver, and that magical incantation seems to fix it for some people.

Yet again it completely fails to cope with graphics card drivers. It's quite poor, really! There are loads of people with this on the Ubuntu forums, it seems.

[velvetchamber.livejournal.com]

In your shoes I would have tossed in the towel and gone to make some food. Good luck with it.

[thecorpsekitten.livejournal.com]

sudo apt-get autoclean

sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Will that help you at all?

[thedarkproject]

Nah, but thanks. I've no idea what autoclean does. But the apt-get dist-upgrade is what I did in a terminal after the upgrade program fucked itself.

On reboot, I needed to reconfigure the X server manually, since Linux always, every single time, shits all over itself if you try and upgrade when you aren't using one of its standard graphics drivers (say, because you actually want to use proper ones from Nvidia). Once I did that, I managed to boot into KDE again, where it looks like everything might be working, though it's hard to tell for sure.