Upgrading from Kubuntu 7.10 to 8.04 page might contain error

**amitst** · November 6th, 2013

I am trying to upgrade Kubuntu 7.10 to Kubuntu 8.04 on my legacy hardware.

I am referring to the link https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EOLUpgrades/Gutsy for the same (let me know if there is any better way to get Kubuntu to the latest version).

I noticed that the following line on the above page contains (perl syntax) error.

Code:

sudo perl -p -i.ORIG -e 's#^(/dev/)hda(\d+)#$1sda$2 /etc/fstab

I feel the above line should be,

Code:

sudo perl -p -i.ORIG -e 's#^(/dev/)hda(\d+)#$1sda$2#g' /etc/fstab

Please let me know if my suggested change is correct.

**sudodus** · November 6th, 2013

Both those versions are way past end of life. It will be hard to find repositories with packages for the upgrade. And there will be no security updates.

I suggest that you back up your personal files and maybe bookmarks of the web browser, and make a fresh installation of a current version. The current long time support version is 12.04 LTS (actually the point release 12.04.3 LTS). The newest version is 13.10, but it has only 6 months support, so I would recommend 12.04.3 LTS, which is well debugged and polished.

If standard Ubuntu with Unity needs too much horsepower, try Xubuntu 12.04 with LTS until April 2015. The next LTS version will be 14.04 to be released in April 2014, and you can expect that it will be possible to upgrade directly from one LTS system to the next one in July or August, at the first point release (so from an updated/dist-upgraded 12.04 to 14.04.1).

**amitst** · November 6th, 2013

Thanks. I was trying to do a 12.04 LTS installation (Ubuntu 12.04 an also Xuuntu 12.04) through a USB flash drive. However, it the USB won't boot (it is known to boot properly on my newer system).

Sorry to trail away from the main topic, but the USB port is I think of type USB1. In the BIOS I see "USB FDD" and "USB ZIP" options for booting. However, I tried both with no luck.

I will try to burn a Xubuntu 12.04 DVD and try again.

**mastablasta** · November 6th, 2013

if you have a floppy you can use plop boot manager to boot from USB (i do that on ancient laptop).

2 things i want to mention here

first is you never mentioned your systems specs so we could give you better advice what to use. Kubuntu changed a lot since 7.10 and it now uses KDE4, but partial "classic" look&feel can still be obtained. but anyway for lower specs Kubuntu has low fat package which will turn off desktop effects and reduce system resoruces usage. you would be at about 200 MB ram with those.

second if you decide to go with Kubuntu i suggest the lastest 13.10 (supported for 9 months) and then upgrade to 14.04 LTS (supported 3 years i believe). the reason for that is that 13.10 is polished release in Kubuntu (they really didn't add that many new features) and it uses latest KDE version which has a better system resource optimisation and uses less resources and is faster than the one in 12.04. ofcourse another neat option is to install 12.04 (supported for 5 years) and then just add PPA for newer KDE. KDE as desktop is now mostly getting bugs solved and improvement in system resources usage. so it's quite good and stable. at the same time they are developing version 5 which is not ready for use yet as i read.

**amitst** · November 7th, 2013

I don't have a floppy but my old system has DVD writer. I can boot using a DVD/CD.

Here are the specs:

Code:

Processor: AMD Athlon XP 2000+ 1.67GHz, 
224MB RAM
Display adaptor: NVIDIA GeForce2 Integrated GPU

Another thing I noticed was, when I inserted Ubuntu 12.04 LTS DVD and booted through it, my monitor started showing something like "out of sync frequency, please change resolution" message. I tried with Mageia 3 Live DVD as well. Got the same message. I have Xubuntu 12.04 LTS CD, which boots fine. However, it seems it has errors while writing. So after couple of installation wizard screens the UI crashes and I start seeing shutdown messages in the console.

Any idea why frequency out of sync message might be coming?

**amitst** · November 7th, 2013

I burned another DVD (Xubuntu 12.04) thinking the CD might have errors. However in both cases I observed the following (painstakingly slow performance),
- It took around 10 minutes to reach the "Do you want to try Xubuntu or install Xubuntu" message
- After clicking "Install Xubuntu" it took another 5 minutes to get the next screen "Install below third party software check box, free disk check, internet connectivity check"
- After selecting 3rd party software install and clicking continue, it took another 5-10 minutes and then UI disappeared
- I started seeing the following console message:

Code:

* Stopping enable remaining boot-time encrypted block device.... rest of the message went past the screen
                                                                                [OK]

I waited for 5-10 more minutes but nothing happened. The installation is stopping exactly at this point every time.

Any pointers?

**mörgæs** · November 7th, 2013

You don't have enough RAM for installing. You could try to find some used sticks, but frankly I don't think it's worth the effort. CPU and graphics card are too weak.

Best is to find some used hardware, say 4-6 years of age. Should not cost you much.

**amitst** · November 7th, 2013

I am able to move ahead after referring to this thread: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions

I selected nomodeset option by pressing F6 (removed quiet splash and also inserted xdriver=vesa) and went ahead. However, after a while, I am hitting a blank screen.

**overdrank** · November 7th, 2013

Originally Posted by amitst

I am able to move ahead after referring to this thread: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BootOptions

I selected nomodeset option by pressing F6 (removed quiet splash and also inserted xdriver=vesa) and went ahead. However, after a while, I am hitting a blank screen.

Recommended Minimum System Requirements

512 MiB RAM (system memory)