[DESKTOP] Emergency--Update is stuck

[vineyridge]

I installed Kubuntu 18.04 LTS yesterday on a dual boot system that uses Hughesnet for an ISP. My data is strictly limited through them, except between 2 and 8 am. Kubuntu said that I had 382 updates of 334 megs to install, so I got up at 5 am, fired up the computer and asked it to install all updates. It's now 8:40 am, and I've been stuck on update 246 since 7 am. Discover won't allow me to shut down, and my Hard Drive light doesn't seem to be flashing as if it were working to install anything. I left the computer to do its thing and went back to bed at 5:30, came back and had to login again. Discovery Updater installed about six updates and then got stuck on 246. I've had to login again once since it got stuck.

What should I do? I know no Unix.

[jglen490]

Discover is really not all that good, other than letting you know that updates are available.

From personal experience, when Discover throws a notice, I go to the command line and enter

sudo apt update

followed by

sudo apt full-upgrade

The response is quick and the updates are installed in matter of minutes with even the longest of lists.

There are others who swear by Discover, but if you have any ISP limitations at all, it's probably a good idea to not use it for updates.

[Qqmike]

You can try this:

First, close Discover. If you can't do it by clicking the X at top right, try this, holding down all 3 keys at the same time:
control-alt-ESC
(keep trying until you get a "kill" cursor)
then use that cursor to close the upper-right "X" on Discover.

Then try these, at Konsole, one after the other (letting each one finish before typing the next one):
sudo dpkg --configure -a
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -f install

Then, to update your system,
sudo apt full-upgrade

[vineyridge]

Thanks for the help. I killed Discover with Xkill. Since updating requires web use, I'm going to have to until after 2 am, but before 8 am, tonight to use the terminal commands.

Can I use the terminal with Firefox running?

[jglen490]

Absolutely!

[v7peer]

I did not know the key combination Ctrl-Alt=!sc for xkill. Nice!
I used to start xkill in the terminal.

[vineyridge]

Must report that I didn't do the updates last night. Decided it was better to sleep. Will post my progress when I do try.