Fresh install 15.04 problem

[hamhog]

I had Kubuntu 14.04 installed on a desktop PC a couple of years ago and all seemed to work ok until
I found I had run out of room on the hard drive (was only 8GB). I never did the upgrade to 14.1 but updates
to the different programs did work when ever i checked for updates using muon.

Ok so a couple of days ago I replaced the hard drive with a 160GB unit and no other hardware changed.
I did a fresh install of 14.04 and it seemed everything went ok but i wasn't seeing the upgrade notification
as shown on the Ubuntu/Kubuntu website pages and muon had no upgrade path either other than just updates
but would always return everything was up to date.

So I downloaded the 15.04 ISO and made a install DVD and started fresh again not keeping any of the 14.04
files. The install went ok no issues that i ran into but now when the PC boots I get the message at the top
left corner of the screen "starting version 219" and it just sits there and doesn't continue to boot fully up.

I am new to Linux and want to be more proficient with this version of Linux (Kubuntu) and tired of winblows
but having issues with the latest release of 15.04. The PC I am using has a AMD Duron processor running at 1.9GHz
but has worked fine with 14.04.

I am asking for some advise as to what i should try to get this newer Kubuntu version to work.
Thanks,
Bruce

[ronw]

"Starting version 219" is a kernel boot message sneaking through. Next up should be your display manager (SDDM).

At the point it stops, can you get to a terminal, Ctl+Alt+F2?

If so, login, then start with:

$ sudo apt update

$ sudo apt full-upgrade

Note any errors. Then:

$ sudo reboot

Some people will suggest sacrificing a small furry animal at this point. This has not been scientifically proven to help.

[hamhog]

Ok thanks for the reply Ron...
I was able to use terminal to log in and then performed the steps you mentioned.
After all was done and I tried "sudo reboot" it came back eventually to the same problem as first described, "starting version 219" and then just sits there.

During the full-upgrade command I did see some errors:
"wrong ufstype may corrupt your file system default is ufstype=old"

and

"Ext4-fs <sda2> unable to read superblock" actually there were about 3 lines of this
"Fat fs bogus number of reserved sectors" and 2 lines of this, sorry didn't get it all written down.

Thank you for your help.
Bruce

[ronw]

Hmm. Filesystem errors during a full-upgrade does not sound good.

Do you have a Live CD/USB or similar that you can boot from to fsck them? I don't remember offhand if the Advanced Options in the Grub menu offers to check filesystems.

Beyond that, since you can get to terminal, dmesg will show your last boot's messages, /var/log/Xorg.0.log your most recent messages from Xorg (grep EE Xorg.0.log is handy), and /var/log/sddm.log might provide some clues if SDDM is failing (I've never parsed this log, so not sure what is hiding in there).

Which graphics card do you have, and if Nvidia or AMD, did you install proprietary drivers? Many posts here about problems, but usually black screens after logging in (and SDDM has passed things off to Plasma).

[Worzel]

If it was me I would probably go for a completely fresh install, formatting every partition (ie /boot, /(root) and /home).
There is satisfaction to be had from solving installation (and other) problems - been there, done it, still learning.

[cybertronichacker]

I agree with Worzel, formatting the hard drive is better as you mentioned that you replaced with a bigger HDD, so to ensure smooth setup, also try downloading another iso from a different mirror some may have bad mirrors and verify the downloaded iso before you write it on disk.

[hamhog]

So I did install from a ISO I burned from the Kubuntu site. I made sure during the install when it asks how much HD to use (partition)
I told it all of it so not sure the HD is being fully formatted or partially.
I performed "sha256sum" on that DVD and the hash matches what is shown on the Kubuntu site for downloading/installing.

Like I said before I installed 14.04 via an ISO without a hitch but couldn't upgrade it for what ever reason. I did not try to upgrade via terminal with
14.04, I am new to this so not familiar with all the commands while in terminal but can get through it slowly.

[hamhog]

Oh one other thing I did try to run 15.04 from the DVD rather than fully load it on the HD.
It failed to run and I don't remember what the error was, I just hate to rerun something again knowing it isn't going to work but may have
to so i can get more info as to the failure which may be related even when running from the HD.

[cybertronichacker]

Have you tried going into terminal eg ctrl+alt+f1 then login with your credentials, then type the following
mv ~/ .kde ~/.kde. old
mv ~/ .cache ~/. cache. old
mv ~/ .local ~/ .local. old
mv ~/ .config ~/ .config. old
shutdown -r now

If you manage to login after reboot, access System settings and change desktop session to "start with empty session"
Hope that works out for you.

[hamhog]

To get to terminal mode I use ctrl+alt+f2, will ctrl+alt+f1 do the same or is there a slight difference?

So what i did last night before sleepy time I ran a disk wipe program "DBAN 2.2.6" and I am now installing 15.04. I never did do a complete wipe of the HD
after installing this bigger HD.
If I get the same results I will try what cybertronichacker has suggested.

[hamhog]

I tried installing 15.04 and on reboot it is still doing the same so I got to terminal using ctrl+alt+f1 ok.
Next I tried the first line mv ~/ .kde ~/ .kde. old and it comes back "target old is not a directory" so now I think I will install 14.1
and try to upgrade via terminal or via muon.

[cybertronichacker]

Try each 0f those steps one should workout

[hamhog]

I tried each of the "mv" and each time it came back "target old is not a directory".

[hamhog]

Now going back to 14.04 and see if I can upgrade from there and still boot afterwards.

[hamhog]

I have an install question.
When i get to where disk setup is done there is a selection " Guided- use entire disk and use LVM" what is LVM?