Got back from Ubuntu Chicago today, we had a great turn out and a lot of fun. One thing that is a bit scary though is that we have a lot of people on dapper, and they want to move to edgy. Unfortunately, people trying to upgrade their systems are running into tons of errors, and just giving up and leaving disappointed. I know that dapper is the stable, LTS release, but maybe having a few systems to test the upgrade might not be a bad idea. One reference point: ubuntu forums
Generally I write things off like that, since they are very sparse on specifics and don’t leave me much of an option to give them a helping hand, but I am seeing a lot of these posts, from blogs, forums and irc. Personally my own problems upgrading with the python changes lead me to believe they are actually valid problems.
For those who don’t feel like reading the above, summary: What is the migration strategy and testing procedure?Â
Related posts:
#1 by Michael Vogt on October 29, 2006 - 8:59 am
Hi Steven,
thanks for your blog entry! Do you have more specific data about the kind of problems people have with the upgrade? Is it that packages are failing to install during the upgrade? Or that the system works differently and/or lacks features after the upgrade?
I would love to hear more about the problems so that we can try to fix as many of them as possible via edgy-updates and for the next release.
As for the testing, we do regular upgrade testing, but this is usually in a (relatively) small set of setups.
Cheers,
Michael
#2 by Daniel Holbach on October 29, 2006 - 9:24 am
Try running
gksu “update-manager -c”
#3 by Andrew Bassett on October 29, 2006 - 3:39 pm
One good point that was brought up yesterday was Automatix. If people use that script, it installs all kinds of garbage. People don’t understand that if you run that script and then dist-upgrade to Edgy, things are going to be hosed because you started with a broken system. Put garbage in, get garbage out….
I generally tend to stay away from that crap. If it isn’t in the repo’s, I don’t install it.
#4 by mindwarp on October 29, 2006 - 4:10 pm
Unfortunately the people who have the most problems seem to be very hard to nail down on specifics since they have already formatted. Maybe update-manager, when dist-upgrading, can file a notice automagically if it fails on any packages?
I wouldn’t think a bug report, only because I am guessing this would be by the thousands thanks to things like automatix, but maybe just a simple database with error messages and the package names that failed?
#5 by Ralesk on October 29, 2006 - 5:01 pm
Well, personally I never used the Automatix and other stuff (as mentioned a little later by Dennis Kaarsemaker), the only foreign packages on my system are Skype, an fglrx alien I have since overridden with the “normal†fglrx package, and Opera. But I’ve been using Edgy pretty much since it’s been available as a bleeding edge repo — and just as Steven mentioned, there’s a load of python packages that refuse to upgrade, even now.
root@eretnek:~# apt-get dist-upgrade
Reading package lists… Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information… Done
Calculating upgrade…Done
The following packages have been kept back:
libggi2 mplayer python-adns python-clientcookie python-crypto
python-egenix-mxdatetime python-egenix-mxproxy python-egenix-mxstack
python-egenix-mxtexttools python-gadfly python-htmlgen python-htmltmpl
python-imaging python-imaging-sane python-jabber python-kjbuckets
python-ldap python-mysqldb python-pam python-pexpect python-pgsql
python-pylibacl python-pymad python-pyopenssl python-pyorbit python-pyxattr
python-reportlab python-simpletal python-soappy python-sqlite python-syck
python-xml python-xmpp
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 33 not upgraded.
So that’s it… any ideas?
I hope I didn’t mess up the site too much (boy, does WP need a preview feature…).
#6 by mgolden on October 29, 2006 - 8:20 pm
I think there was a bit of a rush to get Edgy out in the end. During the beta I reported a problem with an upgrade I tried, only to have it ignored because I was using the KDE 3.5.4 packages instead of the vanilla system. Given that I had these issues with a pretty vanilla configuration, it’s not entirely surprising that there were issues with more unusual stuff.
You can see the bug I am talking about here:
https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/63694
Just to be clear: in the end I had no trouble at all upgrading to Edgy, but I was pretty surprised to have this bug ignored.
#7 by Meneer R on October 30, 2006 - 2:25 am
Not just those who are using Automatix.
I mean .. everybody has w32codecs installed right?
Everybody with a recent ATI or NVidia card is running binary drivers?
Everybody has libdvdcss2 installed.
These are all update issues.
Perhaps in the future Ubuntu should co-operate more with one specific semi-legal repository that is hosting those files.
The most logical candidate for their update policy to consider would be the Penguin Liberation Front.
Secondly I would like to note, that the more intelligent nerds among us, have a seperate /home partition. We upgrade using a clean install and then redo all the tweaks we do.
Perhaps it would help if there was a ubuntu-based distro that actually pre-installed all the ‘questionable’ packages. Let’s call it the Ubuntu bite-my-shiny-metal-ass edition.
Seriously, I know people running Ubuntu. I know NO ONE running Ubuntu without the COMMON CUSTOMIZATIONS… (codecs, binary drivers, firmware, etc.)
If it was up to us, all those lawyers including hardcode evangalist can BITE OUR SHINY METAL ASS.
Perhaps it sounds a bit radical. But I, and with me, i think a lot of the new ubuntu converts: we don’t give a flying fuck about laywers or patents. When we pay, it will always be a _choice_. Let me put it like this: It wouldn’t be very healthy for any lawyer to meddle with my freedom.
Perhaps it just because I’m dutch. We actually have some laws which specially claim ‘that breaking the law as a form of protest’ is legal. Its called the civil disobedience-law. I guess it parts of the culture here: the goverment is here to serve us, and not the other way around.
I have firm beliefs about right and wrong. The reason I don’t break most laws is because I agree with them. But let’s not have any mistake about what would happen when my morals and ‘the law’ disagrees. Fuck the law. I couldn’t care less.
So Ubuntu with codecs and all the common customization. LetÅ› have it. Solve the update problem.
Don’t do it secretely. Let’s have us breaking the law all in the open. I AM NOT ASHAMED. I Will fight for my right to run Ubuntu and be compatible to any monopolist pushed technologies.
Why not just do it. Add all the stuff we all add anyway and just face the consequences. If you need me marching down the street I will. If you need me to fight the lobbyist I will. If you need me to fucking rebel against my goverment, I WILL.
#8 by Meneer R on October 30, 2006 - 11:50 am
[quote]People don’t understand that if you run that script and then dist-upgrade to Edgy, things are going to be hosed because you started with a broken system.[/quote]
There is lies, damn lies and dumb-ass repeat-what-the-other-guy-just-should-ubuntu-community.
Name one reason why some multimedia codec or googleearth is going to make X not start up.
Don’t blame a completely untested upgrade path that fails for most users ON THE USER please.
An operating system should be able to cope with 3rd party software.
The 3rd party apps don’t have to work after the upgrade, but there is no reason why X should fail or why the kernel shouldn’t work, or why the fonts are all messed up, or why python is not upgrading. The update should return the system as if was a clean install. If there are any clinches with any packages, favor officially supported ones and remove the unsupported ones.
You can seriously be saying all we can install are canonical-approved packages. Not even MS would be that arrogant.