Upgraded from 8.10, Grub menu unchanged

[geezer]

Upgraded today from 8.10 using the panel notification method.

Slight hiccup during download of packages and download halted. Rebooted and continued download. Upgrade semed to go okay from there.

Rebooted and 2.6.28-11 entries for 9.04 missing from boot menu.

Booted 8.10, 2.6.27-11, the old default.

Mucked about in the /boot directory and used the grub tool in the system settings to add 2.6.28-11 generic and recovery mode. Got it wrong the first time and got the grub error "Invalid or unsupported Executable Format" and dropped back to the menu. Booted 8.10 and mucked about some more and found out what I got wrong, fixed and booted 2.6.28-11-generic.

On login, KDE 4.1 is booted and not 4.2 ( anyway I assume it is 4.1 since the boot splash screen says 4.1 and not 4.2). The appearance seems different so maybe it is actually 4.2.

So why doesn't the upgrade add the proper entries to the grub boot menu? The grub editor won't let me elevate the new entries to the top so I may have to manually edit the file.

Why doesn't KDE 4.2 boot instead of 4.1 and if it is actually 4.2, why wasn't the splash screen updated during the upgrade

Having problems with the new HPLIP toolbox - it is unable to find the proper su/sudo plugin.

I may have to fall back to the better method and download the CD and do a proper installation. Had to do the same when upgrading from 7 to 8 and from 8.04 to 8.10.

Upgrades of Kubuntu just don't seem to work properly. Seems like it is always necessary to do a proper format of the boot partition and installation. That wipes out all of the old stuff that the upgrade leaves hanging around to foul up proper working.

Well I notice that the NVidia 180 driver is the recommended driver under 9.04. I'll test it out to see if it works. I have not been able to get ANY NVidia driver working. They always do REALLY, REALLY bad things to my set-up including fouling up the boot process.

Since I will be doing a new installation anyway, if it does foul things up royally as always, I won't feel bad and just proceed on the installation.

[doctordruidphd]

Re: Upgraded from 8.10, Grub menu unchanged

Can't answer all of these, but:

1. I always edit my grub menu manually. I point it at the links for vmlinuz and initrd.img in / and never have any problems with it. Yet. Just check to make sure those links have been updated by the upgrade process to point at the right files.

2. The nvidia stuff finally works for me. Check out this post and its replies:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3102675.0
If it leaves a problem, it's usually with the /etc/xorg.conf file and not the driver itself. The configuration program doesn't get it right; I wound up editing that manually, too.

3. I have found that upgrading, especially if there is anything to do with X or kde, goes best with X and kde not running, meaning from the "rescue" prompt. I usually do a "sudo apt-get update" followed by "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade", and let that go through without X running. Check your /etc/apt/sources.list file, and make sure everything from "intrepid" got changed to "jaunty", then try the update and dist-upgrade from the console prompt. The alternative to the rescue login is, while in kde, hit CTRL-ALT-F1, log in, and then "sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop" which will kill kde, then do the update and dist-upgrade.

Hope this is of some help.

[Duggeek]

Re: Upgraded from 8.10, Grub menu unchanged

As someone who went through the Adept slick-but-slow GUI upgrade, I can empathize. I've been with Kubuntu for some time, and frankly it went 10x better than the Edgy-to-Feisty upgrade.

I sent both of my Kubuntu systems through the upgrade; my AMD64 box made X go zombie somehow and I had to finish the upgrade from tty1. Regardless, both of them made it though OK.

One thing I noticed—on both boxes—were dialog windows about menu.lst; the misleading default basically said "keep it as-is". Looking over the entire list, I decided to go with the non-default, "Use the package maintainers version" (basically, "Use the one from the upgrade")

Though I can still see the obsolete kernels in menu.lst, the updated kernel for Jaunty is at the top.

So, now the question is... how do we get your system in the same shape? The other problems could be explained by a fouled upgrade, so the distribution-upgrade issue should be resolved first.

The distribution upgrade is a one-time thing, so we'll have to fix this manually from an Intrepid boot. Fortunately, Intrepid came equipped with a GUI grub editor!

At the desktop, go to System Settings and click on the Advanced tab, you should see Grub Editor at the bottom. (the icon is a hard-disk with on top)

Using it is pretty straightforward, it has a "wizard" when you click the +Add button. As long as the proper initramfs image is already made, then it should be easy to put it on the menu and make it the new default.

Good luck!

P.S. If you end up going the ISO route, do yourself a favor and get the "alternate" CD image... mount the CD in dolphin, press Alt+F2 and start the upgrade with: kdesudo /media/cdrom/cdromupgrade ...say "no" to the online updates to get it done quickly, but be sure to select "Package maintainers version" with menu.lst this time.

[geezer]

Re: Upgraded from 8.10, Grub menu unchanged

Can't answer all of these, but:

1. I always edit my grub menu manually. I point it at the links for vmlinuz and initrd.img in / and never have any problems with it. Yet. Just check to make sure those links have been updated by the upgrade process to point at the right files.

2. The nvidia stuff finally works for me. Check out this post and its replies:
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...opic=3102675.0
If it leaves a problem, it's usually with the /etc/xorg.conf file and not the driver itself. The configuration program doesn't get it right; I wound up editing that manually, too.

3. I have found that upgrading, especially if there is anything to do with X or kde, goes best with X and kde not running, meaning from the "rescue" prompt. I usually do a "sudo apt-get update" followed by "sudo apt-get dist-upgrade", and let that go through without X running. Check your /etc/apt/sources.list file, and make sure everything from "intrepid" got changed to "jaunty", then try the update and dist-upgrade from the console prompt. The alternative to the rescue login is, while in kde, hit CTRL-ALT-F1, log in, and then "sudo /etc/init.d/kdm stop" which will kill kde, then do the update and dist-upgrade.

Hope this is of some help.

1. I got the boot working - I had pointed to the wrong files in /boot. On the second go-round, I finally looked at the entris for the 8.10 and realized my mistake. I hadn't used the vmzlinux

2. Looked at the thread - deals with 64 bit versions. While my machine is 64 bit, I've shied away from the 64 bit versions because I have heard that they are not stable. True Anyway I tried the NVidia 180 driver - Again - and it still doesn't work. Everything seems to install correctly, but on reboot, I get all kinds of errors. Always have to reboot into the rescue mode and have it fix X with a generic config file. I am definitely NOT using NVidia on any new computers.

3. doing the upgrade with X running could bery well be the problem

[geezer]

Re: Upgraded from 8.10, Grub menu unchanged

As someone who went through the Adept slick-but-slow GUI upgrade, I can empathize. I've been with Kubuntu for some time, and frankly it went 10x better than the Edgy-to-Feisty upgrade.

I sent both of my Kubuntu systems through the upgrade; my AMD64 box made X go zombie somehow and I had to finish the upgrade from tty1. Regardless, both of them made it though OK.

One thing I noticed—on both boxes—were dialog windows about menu.lst; the misleading default basically said "keep it as-is". Looking over the entire list, I decided to go with the non-default, "Use the package maintainers version" (basically, "Use the one from the upgrade")

Though I can still see the obsolete kernels in menu.lst, the updated kernel for Jaunty is at the top.

So, now the question is... how do we get your system in the same shape? The other problems could be explained by a fouled upgrade, so the distribution-upgrade issue should be resolved first.

The distribution upgrade is a one-time thing, so we'll have to fix this manually from an Intrepid boot. Fortunately, Intrepid came equipped with a GUI grub editor!

At the desktop, go to System Settings and click on the Advanced tab, you should see Grub Editor at the bottom. (the icon is a hard-disk with on top)

Using it is pretty straightforward, it has a "wizard" when you click the +Add button. As long as the proper initramfs image is already made, then it should be easy to put it on the menu and make it the new default.

Good luck!

P.S. If you end up going the ISO route, do yourself a favor and get the "alternate" CD image... mount the CD in dolphin, press Alt+F2 and start the upgrade with: kdesudo /media/cdrom/cdromupgrade ...say "no" to the online updates to get it done quickly, but be sure to select "Package maintainers version" with menu.lst this time.

Yeah - those dialog boxes went by pretty fast - I'm pretty sure I just clicked for the default options.

Clicking for the non-default options usually means you should be an expert in what is happening.

Seems pretty weird that they would make using the current menu.lst the default for an upgrade - I mean why do an upgrade and leave the grub menu unchanged and boot the old version with the new version totally excluded.!!!!

I suppose that makes sense to somebody, but then some pretty weird things make a whole lot of sense to some people.

I can just imagine some person totally unfamiliar with what is supposed to be, does the upgrade and still has the old version booting because they accepted all of the defaults like I did. Now does that make any sense at all!!!!

I can already see all of the complaints being posted here because they upgraded, accepted the defaults and the only thing they can boot is the old version. When I was working, people got fired for less than that kind of nonsense. Managers got pretty upset when the help lines were flooded with people asking what happened after a fiasco like that.

[flarson]

Re: Upgraded from 8.10, Grub menu unchanged

I have not actually experienced the problem you are seeing but I have noticed many people stuck with it. I think the problem might be that after a new kernel is installed update-grub needs to be run, and that is usually done by the installation process. I suspect that the installation is failing partially and update-grub is not getting run. If someone wants to try this I think that just running

sudo update-grub

will solve this problem.

[geezer]

Re: Upgraded from 8.10, Grub menu unchanged

I have not actually experienced the problem you are seeing but I have noticed many people stuck with it. I think the problem might be that after a new kernel is installed update-grub needs to be run, and that is usually done by the installation process. I suspect that the installation is failing partially and update-grub is not getting run. If someone wants to try this I think that just running

sudo update-grub

will solve this problem.

I had already fixed the problem using the Grub editor in the system settings.

Today I manually edited the menu.lst file to put 9.04 at the top of the list and make it the default.

I may still have to do an install from the LiveCd. The HP-Toolbox isn't working properly - it cannot install a required plugin.