Thought that I would share my experiences with upgrading on a Dell m1730 from 9.04 to 9.10.
First of all, the upgrade went okay, in that it installed itself, but from there the problems mounted:
Okay, so the biggest problem is the GUI. Basically Karmic cannot identify the m1730 hardware properly. Make that "cannot identify it at all" because the xorg.conf is nothing but defaults. Why it doesn't keep the 9.04 settings in place is beyond me. But at least it creates a backup of the file so you need to choose to login at console from the popup that appears, then cd /etc/X11 and cp the backup over the xorg.conf file.
However, X11 will still not start if you reboot. I haven't debugged this one yet. Will post here with I do.
So to be able to use the GUI, you need to log in at console again, as yourself. then type startx.
That will start the GUI.
However, you need to ensure that you have USB mouse because your touchpad won't work. In fact, nearly nothing works when you upgrade. No sound, no G15, almost nothing at all on my machine so far.
As I fix each of the problems I will post here.
One of the biggest annoyances was that Karmic replaced my flash in Firefox with swfdec which is an annoyance. For a start, it won't actually RUN on a web page, you always have to press a "play" button, so most web pages appear broken. Then, it's not compatible with flash video and for many flash sites it caused my firefox to lock up and the system to grind to a halt so badly that I needed to cold-boot it to get it back.
The solution is easy: Download proper flash from adobe, then go into synaptic and remove swfdec. Then follow the adobe instructions to reinstall your proper flash and all should work well. I put the plugin into the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ directory then symbolically linked the file into /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/.
First of all, the upgrade went okay, in that it installed itself, but from there the problems mounted:
- The g15 daemon no longer works. The error "Unable to attach to the G15 Keyboard" appears in syslog
- Sound is dead
- Graphics were dead. TIP: Go to /etc/X11/ and restore to the backup xorg.conf that the upgrade creates. This is only a work-around as your GUI won't start on boot.
- Mouse (touchpad) is dead. TIP: If you upgrade, make sure that you have a USB mouse handy because your laptop touchpad will not work.
- Flash is "broken" by replacing proper flash with swfdec that doesn't auto-start and cannot be used with AIR in addition to being incompatible with most flash sites.
Okay, so the biggest problem is the GUI. Basically Karmic cannot identify the m1730 hardware properly. Make that "cannot identify it at all" because the xorg.conf is nothing but defaults. Why it doesn't keep the 9.04 settings in place is beyond me. But at least it creates a backup of the file so you need to choose to login at console from the popup that appears, then cd /etc/X11 and cp the backup over the xorg.conf file.
However, X11 will still not start if you reboot. I haven't debugged this one yet. Will post here with I do.
So to be able to use the GUI, you need to log in at console again, as yourself. then type startx.
That will start the GUI.
However, you need to ensure that you have USB mouse because your touchpad won't work. In fact, nearly nothing works when you upgrade. No sound, no G15, almost nothing at all on my machine so far.
As I fix each of the problems I will post here.
One of the biggest annoyances was that Karmic replaced my flash in Firefox with swfdec which is an annoyance. For a start, it won't actually RUN on a web page, you always have to press a "play" button, so most web pages appear broken. Then, it's not compatible with flash video and for many flash sites it caused my firefox to lock up and the system to grind to a halt so badly that I needed to cold-boot it to get it back.
The solution is easy: Download proper flash from adobe, then go into synaptic and remove swfdec. Then follow the adobe instructions to reinstall your proper flash and all should work well. I put the plugin into the /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/ directory then symbolically linked the file into /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/.
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