upgrade from 10.10 to 11.04 disaster (sort of)

[tomboy]

Hi everyone,

last night I thought it would be a good idea to upgrade to 11.04, which went ok. But after the reboot I didn't get a login screen - just black but I had a mouse cursor.
So I check the grub menu (legacy) for the kernel and much to my surprise only Ubuntu 9.10 kernels are listed (e.g. 2.6.31-14). After checking /boot I see that there are in fact newer kernels, particularly 2.6.38 which I boot after manually editing the menu.lst.
Now I get a login screen but a popup informs me that the previous session 'kde' is no longer valid and that I should select another one or it will select 'default'. I select kde/plasmadesktop which causes X to crash and I end up in the command line login.
However, I do have openbox installed so I have an additional session kde/openbox which does boot but is really quirky.

I also checked that kubuntu-desktop is installed and dpkg --configure -a has nothing to attend to.

So, anyone? I'm really stunned...

[oshunluvr]

Re: upgrade from 10.10 to 11.04 disaster (sort of)

I'm a bit confused because you state update from 10.10 to 11.04 and then claim you have 9.10 kernels installed...

Usual first step is to either rename your .kde folder (in your home) and see if your get a desktop, or rename your /home (from console mode) directory and then restart KDM and re-log in.

Frankly, dist-upgrade has always been problematic for Kubuntu so many of us opt to do a clean install and transport settings over once the new version is up and running - too late for this suggestion now, however...

[tomboy]

Re: upgrade from 10.10 to 11.04 disaster (sort of)

Thanks you for answering!

Yeah, I guess it wasn't wise to begin with the kernel entries but it was the chronology how it appeared to me. The thing is there are old kernels still on my system and for some reason only those where in the menu.lst.....

I tried your suggestion of renaming .kde which didn't work. Still it seems X crashes and I'm back with the command line login. But I made another interesting discovery: I have another user on my system which I never use. So I try to login with it and it works!?!
So does this mean it's my kde user settings that cause the crash

[oshunluvr]

Re: upgrade from 10.10 to 11.04 disaster (sort of)

Yes, I know it's a pain but recreating your home directory may be your only option.

Log in as the other user, use "sudo" to rename your home directory and log out, log back in as yourself an wait while it builds a new home for you.

Once it's complete, you can move your data (but not desktop settings!) over from your old home. Don't forget the hidden directories for your browser and email program.

[tomboy]

Re: upgrade from 10.10 to 11.04 disaster (sort of)

allright, I backed up my /home, just in case.

It seem now a new .kde directory was created and I can now start KDE with my usual username! I don't know why it didn't work the first time....

now my only problem is that the graphic performance are buggy. somehow, especially browsers seem to to refresh only every second, which makes writing this message a pain - but i guess that's another story...

anyway, thanks a lot!