upgrade ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10
Posted 11-03-2009 at 12:01 PM by itbod
Uh Oh my ugrade manager says a new version of ubuntu is ready to download and install! I panic at this as the last time I upgraded to 9.04 I enounted so many problems I ended up installing from scratch losing all my data.
If there was an easy way to backup the entire system it would be brilliant. By the way, i used to run 8.10 which ran perfectly 9.04 crashes frequently, screen goes blank and will not recover causing me to do a hard re-boot which of course corrupts data. I asked on LQ if anybody could help and a number of fellow users kindly gave me some things to try but the conclusion I have come to is that the Dell machine which I use which came from Dell directly with 8.10 pre-installed, has a conflict with the video card. I have emailed Dell but had no reply.
If I can backup the system then I will try out the upgrade but I must confess I am very nervous as this is my main PC.
Any ideas anyone?
itbod
If there was an easy way to backup the entire system it would be brilliant. By the way, i used to run 8.10 which ran perfectly 9.04 crashes frequently, screen goes blank and will not recover causing me to do a hard re-boot which of course corrupts data. I asked on LQ if anybody could help and a number of fellow users kindly gave me some things to try but the conclusion I have come to is that the Dell machine which I use which came from Dell directly with 8.10 pre-installed, has a conflict with the video card. I have emailed Dell but had no reply.
If I can backup the system then I will try out the upgrade but I must confess I am very nervous as this is my main PC.
Any ideas anyone?
itbod
Total Comments 5
Comments
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do you have a USB-grand-disk? copy your system there and reinstall or upgrade and in case ... then at least you have the original system after installing 9.04Posted 11-03-2009 at 03:17 PM by kampmannpeine 
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Hi,
i had problems with jaunty and my screen going black, i thought it had froze up but i saw caps lock was working when i pressed it , so i did ctrl+alt+f2 to get to a console and then when i go back to KDE ctrl+alt+f7 then it was ok ...it just seemed my screen back light would go off occasionally this problem seemed to disappear i guess with some updates.
i had problems with my upgrade to karmic , KDE went funny ...and then problems with the fresh install because i had the old style encrypted drive set up.
what i do for my backups is i back up my data to an external drive , and as for the system state back up i run
dpkg --get-selections > installed-software
this creates a text file of all the software installed on your system and i keep that file in my webmail account
then when i do a fresh install i connect to my webmail and get the file then run
dpkg --set-selections < installed-software
then you run
apt-get dselect-upgrade
this puts all your software back on .
then copy your data over . i also keep a copy of my kdewallet.kwl file in my web mail , as this has all passwords for networks etc
hope this is of help to youPosted 11-03-2009 at 03:29 PM by simonwil
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When upgrading to a newer version of your linux o.s. It is always advisable to make sure that you have an up-to-date image of your current version. Although there are packages such as clonezilla that will do the job for you, I like to be in control and use the command line to do things for me.
My procedure is:
1.Use a usb hdd of a similar or larger size than your system’s internal hdd to make an image back-up. ( I use an identical drive)
2.Boot up your system with any old linux live distro on CD or DVD.
3.Open a terminal and ensure that your system and usb drive are unmounted.
4.Then use the dd command to make an image of your system hdd onto the usb hdd.
Of course you must be careful to use the correct input and output devices. I at the command line use fdisk -l to find them. In my case they are /dev/sda1; /dev/sda2 …. and /dev/sdb1; /dev/sdb2 …...
I then use /dev/sda as the input file and /dev/sdb as the ouput file vis:
# dd if=/dev/sda of=/dev/sdb &
For recovery you must do the same as above but interchange the input and output devices.
It takes some time depending on your hardware, but I do l this whenever I update my packages and usually let it run overnight.
I also regularly make a back-up of my personal files by copying them to a usb thumb drive.
Note, this is ok for a multiple boot system.Posted 11-04-2009 at 07:29 AM by punch_t
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Thanks folks, i will try the above and see how I get on. I love Linux but I am still learning the nitty gritty stuff. I started on Computers in the good old days before there was a common OS, i.e the Apple II, Apricot and does anybody rember the old Ferranti mini computers?
itbodPosted 11-04-2009 at 10:49 AM by itbod
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Ok This is it! I am now ready to upgrade. all files etc backed up twice just in case. Guess what? I choose Upgrade Now, all appears to start correctly then before it proceeds I get the message:
# failed to lock /var/cache/apt/archives/lock
check your internet connection and try again.
the net appears to be working fine. Could TOR be causing this?
Strange 'coz when I was installing something else earlier I had the same message. I don't know what you all think, but it would be nice if linux could explain it's errors better but then again I can't complain as Linux is turning out to be one of the better OS around. Any thoughts on this? Oh by the way, I have also downloaded and burnt a CD with 9.10 on it as an ISO as a last resort.
ItbodPosted 11-19-2009 at 10:11 AM by itbod
