Borked Upgrade

[ScottyK]

Tonight I was doing the upgrade (from command line) to 12.10 from 12.04 on my netbok.

When it got to the question about keeping the KDM menu or something (this was a while ago), instead of selecting the default "no", I was an idiot and selected Yes

It did a few updates, rebooted, and since then It's hanging at the "checking battery state.... [OK]"

No option for grub (that I can see), so I can't figure out how to get to a command line to fix the broken upgrade via failsafe.

Since this is a netbook without a DVD drive, will I need to install 12.10 on a USB drive? Or is there something I can do to resume the upgrade?

[whatthefunk]

You can usually enter a terminal by booting from a live CD/DVD/USB and selecting "Recover a broken system" or whatever it says.

[sithlord48]

hold shift on boot to get to the grub menu and then select recovery mode. use root terminal to run dpkg-reconfigure lightdm and it should ask if you want to use it as default. you can then use the command dpkg --configure -a to finish setting up any packages left.

[ScottyK]

When I drop to the root terminal, and type "dpkg-reconfigure lightdm". I get an error in essence that says, "package 'lightdm' is no installed and no information is available."

"/usr/sbin/dpkg-reconfigure: lightdm is no installed"

[whatthefunk]

Did you try installing it in the terminal?

[ScottyK]

Yeah I got to the root terminal via holding down the shift button. "repair broken packages" didn't work. Also tried recovery mode for some of the older kernels I had on here, and that didn't work either.

There isn't much in the way of important files on the netbook, I might just nuke it and install from scratch. Heading out on the road Monday and need it working, one way or another!

[whatthefunk]

Try to purge it and install it again.

sudo apt-get purge lightdm
sudo apt-get install lightdm

[ohadcn]

leave lightdm
probably you still have kdm
try "sudo dpkg-reconfigure kdm", if it say you have no kdm then install it

also try "startx"

[pavbaranov]

Using KDM or any other DM in Kubuntu 12.10 isn't a problem.
Try:
- recovery mode, then
- root console (or something like this) with network connection (you should be wired connected to net), then
-

# apt-get -f install

and/or

# dpkg --configure -a

both should help to configure broken system (without all neccesary packages or with not configured packages).
But... maybe you are using proprietary graphic drivers and you weren't deinstall it prior. In this cause you should remove your proprietary driver, remove xorg.conf and if you still want to use proprietary driver, install it after upgrade will be completed.