Out of curiosity, what does "do-release-upgrade" do that editing your
sources.list, "sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop &&
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade" wouldn't do?
> -Original Message-
> From: ubuntu-devel-discuss-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com [mailto:ubuntu-
> devel-discuss-boun...@lists.ubuntu.com] On Behalf Of Joao Pinto
> Sent: Tuesday, November 03, 2009 12:02 PM
> To: Davyd McColl
> Cc: ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com
> Subject: Re: upgrade from 9.04 - 9.10: the most broken Ubuntu / Debian
> upgradeI have ever experienced
>
> On Tue, Nov 3, 2009 at 2:37 PM, Davyd McColl wrote:
> > Good day all
> >
> > I'll try keep it short, because this mail doesn't contain anything
> > particularly constructive -- it's just pertinent here because of the
> sheer
> > number of people who have posted that perhaps Karmic wasn't ready for
> the
> > big time. Also, I don't know where else to put this up for general
> perusal
> > where the people who count (Ubuntu devs) will actually see it. I
> could LJ
> > it, but you'd have to be a sad puppy to be reading my LJ
> > (http://fluffynuts.livejournal.com). So here it goes:
> >
> > In approximately 10 years of Debian/Ubuntu usage (I switched to
> Ubuntu in
> > the Warty days), I have *never* had the displeasure of such a broken
> upgrade
> > process as I've just had, moving from 9.04 to 9.10. I've experienced
> such
> > brokenness from Fedora (but hey, that *is* the testing-ground for RH,
> so you
> > take your chances to start with, imo). Here's a short list of some
> glaringly
> > obvious problems that even the most incompetant QA should have picked
> up
> > (which, by the way, are being experienced by not only myself with the
> heaps
> > of packages I have installed from the Ubuntu repos, but also by a
> colleague
> > at work who started with a fairly standard 9.04 install just the
> other
> > day.Please bear in mind that I have *very little* installed from
> anywhere
> > other than archive.ubuntu.com -- I think I have 2 ppa's for tor and
> rvm. So
> > my machine, whilst bloated with GNOME, KDE and XFCE components, is
> using
> > mostly off-the-shelf components):
> >
> > 1) libc6 upgrade requires the restart of gdm. Which in turn requires
> the
> > termination of the X11 server. Which, in turn, requires that the
> upgrade
> > process proceeds in a never-ending loop as the actual installation of
> libc6
> > doesn't complete properly. Not a problem for a vet with some
> experience -- a
> > big problem for the "average joe" that Ubuntu is normally so well-
> suited
> > for. Whilst I can switch to a VT and use apt, I don't have the
> confidence
> > that the average user out there could, although they would have been
> > presented with the same "upgrade now?" question by update-manager
> > 2) When I finally got the process started, there were several (read
> 10+)
> > rounds of the following:
> > apt-get dist-upgrade
> > [apt breaks because of package dependencies or other issues, such
> as the
> > config script for a package failing]
> > apt-get install -f
> > [lather, rinse, repeat]
> > again, not that great for Joe user. Not that great for me either. But
> at
> > least I can attempt to fix it and remove conflicting and horribly
> broken
> > packages. I have several bug reports on Launchpad. I got tired of
> posting
> > them all when I got to about the 10th one. Generally, the issues were
> often
> > of the format:
> > upgrade of package [Y] requires installation of new package [Y-
> funkyname],
> > but old [Y] wasn't removed first, so the installation of [Y-
> funkyname] fails
> > because of a package file conflict. Indi comes to mind here.
> > OR
> > bad installation scripts which cannot be run more than once (say,
> when the
> > package fails to install the first time). Wicd shines here, trying to
> add my
> > user to the net-dev group repeatedly and "failing" because I'm
> already in
> > that group from the first time it partially installed.
> > 3) The kicker: after spending a couple of hours on this, I managed to
> get my
> > machine to a state where apt claimed that I had no more updates
> available.
> > So I figured it was time for the inevitable reboot. Except... GRUB is
> > broken. Can't boot. Showstopper. I've tried fixing with a 64-bit
> Debian DVD
> > (sorry, I didn't have the 9.10 install CD
