hi!

I just upgraded my ubuntu box from 22.04 to 23.04, and after that it won't boot. Just after printing "Loading initial ramdisk ..." it freezes (no HD lights flickering, keyboard not responding to anything)

I'm able to boot the machine from a ubuntu 23.04 in a usb stick, but not from my main hard-drive, even though them seem to be using the same kernel version.

Now I noticed that the USB stick doesn't use a `initrd` file. So i tried removing that from my /boot directory, and re-run update-grub. This made the kernel move forward, but then it panicked complaining that it couldn't moutn root in an /dev/nvme... device.

Any suggestions on what to try next ?

Is there a way to copy over the booting configuration (kernel, modules, etc) from the usb maybe ?

There is lots installed/configured in the box, so I wouldn't want to reinstall from scratch ...

Many thx!

the preferred way is to make a backup from your disk and make a reinstall. But you can check the logs and probably you can fix it. Anyway, just copying files will not be enough, you need to configure your system to be able to mount the correct root partition.

Thanks @pan64, but it's not only a backup of the files: it's a back of /etc/..., /var/..., dpkg selection, programs that install stuff in /usr/local, dual-boot configuration, and god knows what else. Not to mention mount points and encrypted keys of home directories. If there is a way to make all this trivial, then I'm all for it

If feels it should be easier to try to fix it -- I just need to install a kernel/configuration that works. About the logs: there are no logs, since the kernel is not able to boot yet.

It either fails quietly if using initramfs, just after the `initrd` line in grub. Or, if I move away the initramfs files, it panics with "Cannot open root device "nvme0n1p1" or unknown block(0,0).

To copy over the kernel from the USB, what needs configuring ? `update-grub`, anything else ? I'm able to boot from USB, mount my root in /mnt, mount --bind /dev, /sys, /proc, /run and /tmp into my root disk in /mnt, and then chroot, and have something that is like what I want in a terminal window, so I can install/remove packages there. But where do I go from there to fix the system ? Any suggestions ?

cheers

ps.: In case it's relevant: it's an intel 12900k cpu, with an old nvidia card, using nvidia drivers.

I believe I had a similar problem upgrading to (K)Ubuntu 22.04 to 23.04. Ended up doing a 'fresh' install. Sorry not helping I know .
Could be an Nivida problem? If you could get back to the 'default' Noveau driver.... (not sure how to do that at this point).

How old is "old"? What model? What NVidia driver version? Are you sure NVidia drivers for 23.04's kernel support your GPU? You may need to stick with FOSS drivers.

Nvidia card is a 2080Ti. I seems still supported in the current nvidia drivers, not sure if 23.04 introduces anything. But after removing everything nvidia (using dpkg --get-selections) it still doesn't boot on kernel 6.2, the default.

But it does boot on an older version of the kernel 5.17.15 -- I downloaded from https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-pp...line/v5.17.15/

I wonder if there is anything else I have installed that could be impacting this. Any ideas of things I should be looking for ?

When booting on kernel 6.2 it never passes the loading of the initrd file. I installed grub's module "progress", and it shows the initrd is fully loaded but nothing else. I added loglevel=6 parameter to the kernel also, but nothing is printed

Next I'm trying to eliminate any differences in kernel modules, from my system (bootable only in 5.17.5) to the usb stick 23.04 (kernel 6.2.0).

So I copied over the directories `/etc/modprobe.d` and `/etc/modules-load.d` and the `/etc/modules` file from my usb stick to my system. That didn't solve it though. But I did a diff of which kernel modules are installed in my system by default (kernel 5.17.5) that are not in the usb stick 23.04 (kernel 6.2.0). These are:

> bridge
> br_netfilter
> dm_crypt
> fb_sys_fops
> hwmon_vid
> intel_tcc_cooling
> llc
> nf_conntrack
> nf_conntrack_netlink
> nf_defrag_ipv4
> nf_defrag_ipv6
> nf_log_syslog
> nf_nat
> nfnetlink
> nf_tables
> nft_chain_nat
> nft_compat
> nft_limit
> stp
> xfrm_algo
> xfrm_user
> xt_addrtype
> xt_conntrack
> xt_limit
> xt_LOG
> xt_MASQUERADE
> xt_state
> xt_tcpudp

Does anything ring a bell as something incompatible on the newer kernels ?

cheers

So, I still dont' understand how/why but I seem to have solved it by:

(1) I changed /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_TERMINAL=console GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="text nosplash debug loglevel=7 apic=verbose --verbose"

(the change to the line above was only adding "text" parameter)

(2) I installed ubuntu-budgie-desktop

(3) Purged any nvidia package

(4) Installed the nouveau XOrg package.

Rebooted

(4) Installed nvidia drivers using the UI "Software Updater" tool (in settings)



Things are booting normally in kernel 6.2.0 now, and things look normal so far


Now some stuff I need to re-install (nvidia support for dockers for instance). But I'll mark this as resolved for now.