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Old 04-30-2011, 01:09 PM   #1
pwabrahams
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Location: Deerfield MA
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Upgrade notification mechanism


The new Natty (K)ubuntu has come out, but I haven't gotten the upgrade notification that I should have gotten. I've tried upgrading via apt-get, synaptic, kpackagekit, and Ubuntu Update Manager, none of which see any sign of it.

I've asked about this in several forums but no one has been able to answer me. So I'll ask two different and more fundamental questions, which perhaps someone here can answer: What is the mechanism by which those update notifications are issued? And what programs are involved?
 
Old 04-30-2011, 01:27 PM   #2
anandkumar44
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Do you have Kubuntu 10.10 installed??

Just go to this link--https://help.ubuntu.com/community/NattyUpgrades/Kubuntu
 
Old 04-30-2011, 01:41 PM   #3
pwabrahams
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The usual method doesn't work.

The first thing I tried was going to the link that you cite. It starts with the sentence "Click on the upgrade notification 'Start upgrade now'". It's exactly that notification that I never get. I'm running Kubuntu 10.10:
Quote:
pwa@pwa-K60IJ:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=10.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=maverick
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 10.10"
It's because the usual methods don't work that I'd like to dig deeper and find out how the notification is triggered.

Last edited by pwabrahams; 04-30-2011 at 01:45 PM. Reason: Add info about 10.10
 
Old 04-30-2011, 05:12 PM   #4
montuos
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I am amused; I found your question by researching the exact opposite problem: that expletive-deleted notification had been popping up for me every six minutes since yesterday morning, and it was driving me stark staring bonkers! ;-D

Here's every different way I've learned so far to get to the relevant setting. Each of these items does the exact same thing, but different people prefer different methods:
  • In your Synaptic Settings -> Repositories -> Update tab, if you have "Release upgrade" set for either "Never" or "Long term support releases only", you need to change it to "Normal releases".
  • In your KPackageKit Settings, click on the "Edit Origins" button at the bottom right. Click the "Updates" tab, and select "Normal Releases" under "Release upgrade".
  • From the K menu, clicking Settings -> System Settings -> System Administration / Software Management -> Settings will take you to the same place as Settings in KPackageKit. Click the "Edit Origins" button at the bottom right, then the "Updates" tab, and select "Normal Releases" under "Release upgrade".
  • Another way to get to that "Updates" tab is with Alt-F2 (or "Run command..." from the K menu) and type or paste "update-manager -d" (without the quotes) into the command box.
  • You can also change this manually; use sudo and your favorite editor to edit the last line of /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades to read "Prompt=normal" (without the quotes).
 
Old 04-30-2011, 10:06 PM   #5
pwabrahams
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Already had "normal"

Alas, I already had set everything to "normal releases" in all those various places. It made not the slightest difference. The problem lies elsewhere.

I'm still wondering how the issuance of those update notifications is realized.
 
Old 05-01-2011, 01:29 AM   #6
montuos
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Do you have update-manager-kde installed? (Description: "Support modules for KPackageKit to check for new distro releases and download the dist-upgrade tool.") How about update-notifier or kubuntu-notification-helper?

The only other thing I can think of is System Settings -> Application and System Notifications -> Other Notifications; make sure "Upgrade information" is checked.

Otherwise, sorry; I don't know enough to help you here. :-/
 
Old 05-01-2011, 10:27 AM   #7
pwabrahams
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I've got all that good stuff installed, and notifications set to Normal. Upgrade Information is checked. Nothing helps.

I'm beginning to wonder if the problem might be that the upgrading mechanism thinks that Natty is already installed, even though of course it isn't, so the comparison test is falsely indicating that no upgrade is available. I think the failure point is likely to be the test that an upgrade is possible.

I'm about ready to chuck the online upgrade, get the Alternate Distribution CD, and go from there, even though I have a perfectly good Internet connection. Whatever the problem, I haven't found anyone else who's affected by it.

The fact that even apt-get update; apt-get upgrade doesn't do anything should be a big clue.

Last edited by pwabrahams; 05-01-2011 at 10:30 AM.
 
Old 05-01-2011, 12:54 PM   #8
montuos
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Actually, from what I've been reading, apt-get upgrade is not allowed to install new packages; you can't do that even with apt-get dist-upgrade. This, on the other hand, looks promising:
Quote:
The command do-release-upgrade was created specifically for upgrading the operating system to the latest release via the command line. Of course, before you issue this command you will want to check to see if an upgrade is available with the command sudo do-release-upgrade -d. When you do this you you be informed if a new release is available. If there is a new release available issue the command sudo do-release-upgrade and the upgrade process will begin.
The rest of that article is here: http://www.ghacks.net/2010/03/11/wha...on-of-apt-get/
 
Old 05-01-2011, 03:13 PM   #9
pwabrahams
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Two other systems also!!!!

To make the situation even more baffling, I have two other Kubuntu Maverick systems on the air: one in a different partition on the same machine, and the other on a different machine altogether. And in none of them does do-release-upgrade find anything. For all three, it tells me that no upgrades are available.

Yet most of the rest of the world gets the notification without any trouble.

The only thing I can think of is that I've added repositories in all three systems, and one of those repositories has a clunker that won't go away and is blocking the upgrade. If that's the case, I have no idea how to find the villain; merely disabling the repositories doesn't solve the problem. I already tried that.
 
Old 05-01-2011, 03:30 PM   #10
montuos
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Try this: In Synaptic's preferences on the Distribution tab, which option(s) do you have selected? I have "Always prefer the highest version". From the mouseover help text, it looks like either of the other options might suppress a dist-upgrade.
 
Old 05-02-2011, 10:29 AM   #11
pwabrahams
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I'm not alone!

I've seen other scattered reports of the problem of the missing notification. The gold standard way of retrieving upgrades is with do-release-upgrade, which I believe doesn't depend on any of your internal settings, repository lists, etc. When that wouldn't work for me (no upgrade found), I just gave up, downloaded the Alternate CD, and upgraded via that path. It was pretty painless.

I'd still like to know why some people don't get the notification, though.
 
  


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