stafio
October 19th, 2012, 11:20 PM
With the release of Quantal Quetzal, I decided to run the distribution upgrade on my Dell Latitude D600. I hadn't read up on the kernel changes and didn't realize that this meant 12.10 wasn't suitable for this laptop. The upgrade kind of worked, but gave me some errors. After some troubleshooting, I was able to get things sorted out and thought I would provide some guidance for anyone looking to do the same. This guide is assuming you're still on Lubuntu 12.04.
Step 1 - Update your packages
Install all of the updates for 12.04 using Update Manager (or another method, if you prefer)
Step 2 - Pin your kernel
Since 12.10 only includes the pae kernel, we'll need to stick with the kernel from 12.04. To do this, you'll need to make use of apt pinning. This will allow you to specify some packages and hold them to a specific version number. In this case, kernel packages.
Create the file /etc/apt/preferences. Hit alt-F2 and then enter
gksu leafpad /etc/apt/preferences
This file will likely not exist/be empty, unless you've done some pinning in the past. Within this file, place the following
Package: linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic
Pin: version 3.2.0.32.35
Pin-Priority: 1001
The version noted above should be correct, assuming you've run all the updates for 12.04
Step 3 - Start the update
Open Synaptic and go to Settings -> Repositories. Click on the Updates tab and change "Notify me of a new Ubuntu version:" to "For any new version".
Exit synaptic and run Update Manager. You should see "New Ubuntu release '12.10' is available" Hit the Upgrade button
You will see some errors throughout the upgrade related to the new kernel failing to install. Just ignore/dismiss these.
Step 4 - Clean Up
After rebooting, I got an error that said "System program problem detected. Do you want to report the problem now?" Click Cancel, as the developers really don't need to know about you trying to install 12.10 on an old machine that they're not supporting.
There are a couple of packages that will attempt to be updated during the upgrade process that aren't necessary. To fix this...
From a terminal:
sudo apt-get --purge remove linux-virtual linux-image-virtual
Just to clean up some other stuff:
sudo apt-get autoremove
Reboot and you should be all set on 12.10 with the latest 12.04 kernel.
Step 1 - Update your packages
Install all of the updates for 12.04 using Update Manager (or another method, if you prefer)
Step 2 - Pin your kernel
Since 12.10 only includes the pae kernel, we'll need to stick with the kernel from 12.04. To do this, you'll need to make use of apt pinning. This will allow you to specify some packages and hold them to a specific version number. In this case, kernel packages.
Create the file /etc/apt/preferences. Hit alt-F2 and then enter
gksu leafpad /etc/apt/preferences
This file will likely not exist/be empty, unless you've done some pinning in the past. Within this file, place the following
Package: linux-generic linux-headers-generic linux-image-generic
Pin: version 3.2.0.32.35
Pin-Priority: 1001
The version noted above should be correct, assuming you've run all the updates for 12.04
Step 3 - Start the update
Open Synaptic and go to Settings -> Repositories. Click on the Updates tab and change "Notify me of a new Ubuntu version:" to "For any new version".
Exit synaptic and run Update Manager. You should see "New Ubuntu release '12.10' is available" Hit the Upgrade button
You will see some errors throughout the upgrade related to the new kernel failing to install. Just ignore/dismiss these.
Step 4 - Clean Up
After rebooting, I got an error that said "System program problem detected. Do you want to report the problem now?" Click Cancel, as the developers really don't need to know about you trying to install 12.10 on an old machine that they're not supporting.
There are a couple of packages that will attempt to be updated during the upgrade process that aren't necessary. To fix this...
From a terminal:
sudo apt-get --purge remove linux-virtual linux-image-virtual
Just to clean up some other stuff:
sudo apt-get autoremove
Reboot and you should be all set on 12.10 with the latest 12.04 kernel.