I have been unsuccessfully trying upgrade my home desktop computer to the latest Ubuntu release: “Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex” for over 24 hours..here is a record of my epic ordeal…
I suppose you can guess how happy I am that I just migrated my websites and services to a separate box…sigh, this all began innocently enough after hacking about looking into Cpanel replacements and fixing and epic fail on my server after experimenting with one. I thought I would do some good and upgrade my desktop…how better to feel good after a horrible installation experience on my server? HAHA
- Upgrade from Ubuntu 8.04 to 8.10 with update manager –fail = gdm/X/nvidia all hate me
- Spend a few hours trying to get the driver to work, X to load properly, and gdm to configure well…scour forums and bash head against wall since there is nofix
- Install Desktop Edition from live cd = fail near completion, I/O error (ended up being the cd-rom)
- Install Server Edition (the other disc I had sitting around) PASS!
- Attempt to install “ubuntu-desktop” on top of server –fail = gets interrupted (!?!?!)
- Run “apt-get -f” to complete the install –fail = dpkg gets interrupted…will not resume
- Run “dpkg -a” (oh God…) –wait—wait—-wait –no errors…pass?
- Attempt to start gdm –fail…attemept to start X –fail = no path to “X”
- WTF!?!?!?!?
- Apt-get install xserver-xorg gnome-desktop-environment ((oh man…wait)) –fail = interrupted
- apt-get -f ((for every meta package thus far…just to be sure))
- Try to start X –fail, no good reason. Spend time trying to find out what is wrong
- cry like a little girl
- attempt to reboot…fail…multiple grub failures…cry again
- run memtest…pass run disk integrity check…pass
- attempt to reinstall using
- alt install
- desktop install
- server install
- …none of which work out
- look for errors
- run memtest again…EPIC FAIL (WTF!?!?)
- scrutinize attempts to install, discover similarities in all 3
- conclude there is
- critically faulty memory stick – up to a 2G problem (NOOOOO!)
- a faulty dual layer lightscribe dvd-rw drive(nooooooo!)
- no spare memory, and no more dvd burners.
Look for memory online. Shudder.
PASS OUT
Brand new day…3 hours later…
- Open box and clean out the dust.
- take out one of the 1G ram sticks, poke around for obvious scorch marks (find none)
- restart hoping the dvd rom might work…it doesn’t. But the memory errors are gone, and we seem to pass memtests again!!!
- swap dvd rom –fail = new rom device doesn’t seem to play nice
- swap with dvd rom from another box…fail again.
- ARGH!!!
- use Server install cd…SUCCESS!! WE DID IT!!!
- Finally! A working installation wiht no crazy read errors!
- Install ubuntu-desktop…wait….wait…..wait, the download is going at 5K/sec. on my 2Mbyte/sec connection. Thank God, I wouldn’t want things to go to easily, I might not appreciate the prize!
And this is where I am now. I am suspecting that the upgrade process and system stress from the bad driver situation brought out some fault in my ram by causing my video card to act all wacky, and that scenario on top of a failing dvd-rom equals epic failure. bBt let’s be clear…this issue began with driver problems and gdm/X issues. Thank you, Canonical for releasing a distro with a broken driver from NVidia! That was awesome! I know, i was beginning to experience hardware failure, so whatever, right? Wrong, my system ran beautifully with 8.04, then the upgrade and a cascade of hardware failures. Right…not very neighborly.
I still love Ubuntu, and I am not trying to blame it for all of my woes right now, but Canonical really needs to not put broken video and wireless drivers into my distro of choice! I think they get cracked out on the release cycle and things slip through the cracks that shouldn’t. (Like the eBbox failure for server 8.10?) Sigh…Anyway, I DO understand that they are trying to satisfy EVERYONE all of the time the best they can…or the most of the people that they possibly can. I also should admit that they generally do an AWESOME job and whgile they do make mistakes, those mistakes are amplified out of proportion by my general frustration oif things needing to be tweaked, and the fear of never getting back into the system…sigh
And now that I have blamed someone for a mostly blameless situation…I am going to go cry in a corner and hug myself for a while.
note…the first error just rolled in…and the second…gconf issues (again)…time to kick gnome?
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EDIT: looks like I’m FINALLY in business! But the nvidia driver is still BORKED.
FINAL EDIT: So at about 1:30 in the morning last night, I got everything totally sorted out. Here’s the silver lining: now I have fancy desktop effects that did not work right in the previous releases on my system, and I was able to get 5.1 surround sound to work with a bug FINALLY FIXED that made it so that I could not have sound with 2 applications at the same time WITH 5.1 sound. I still don’t know why I had to install server first, and then desktop on top of that, but that is no big deal, I have a working system now, with MORE bells and whistles than I had before…yippie!!!