I just fixed it. :D
In the past I always just shrugged and said, you know what, I'll just do a
clean install... However, this time I decided I try to figure this out. It
turns out the main issue my upgrade wasn't working was because I had lots of
packages that were from non-trisquel repositories. When I installed apps from
some repository or ppa, some things the upgrader wasn't expecting were being
included. I think in hindsight it may have been the fact I had 3 versions of
gcc installed (versions 5, 6 and 7). This is how I fixed everything:
1) Remove all non-trisquel PPAs and repositories from the Software & Updates
app.
2) Do the folloiw ing the terminal:
$ sudo apt install apt-show-versions
$ sudo apt-show-versions | grep 'No available'
This shows a list of packages I have installed that aren't from a repository
on my system.
3) Purge packages that are on the list using the following command:
$ sudo dpkg -P --force-all
This command removes the package without removing dependencies, which is what
is needed here.
4) I rebooted noticed that I got a notification in my tool bar that many
packages were now broken, so I went to Synaptic Package manager and it told
me that stuff was too broken so I closed that program and went back to the
terminal and typed the following command:
$ sudo aptitude -f install
Aptitude then suggested a dependency fix which was aggressive but worked. I
just hit "Y" to proceed.
5) Then I typed the following commands to make sure thatI didn't remove
anything that Trisquel needed:
$ sudo apt-get autoremove
$ sudo apt-get autoclean
$ sudo apt install trisquel
I noticed that aptitudes "fix" removed the trisquel package so I installed it
again.
6) I rebooted and did one last autoremove, autoclean, update and upgrade.
Then typed the following commands to get the upgrade to Trisquel 8 going:
$ sudo apt install upgrade-manager
$ sudo upgrade-manager -d
At this point the GUI upgrader boots and I just went through the prompts
saying "Yes" and "OK" to everything. I selected "Restart" at the end of the
upgrade and I computer booted just fine!
I think this technique could help a lot of people who are having issues
upgrading.
