16.04 LTS - can't update

[ewog]

Good afternoon,

I'm running 16.04 LTS, and the Update icon has disappeared from the System Settings list. I don't know how, when or why that happened. I need to update/upgrade because the version of Firefox is too old (63.03), and I can't access some on-line webinars (they only support Firefox versions newer than 68). I had a problem with an update a couple years ago, when after the update my GUI and desktop disappeared. I worked with the Forum to fix that problem. Maybe that was when this problem started. Every now and then the OS sends me a notice about updating, and when I click the "Update" button, nothing happens.

Any suggestions on how to go about upgrading to 18.04 LTS or 19.10?

My laptop is a Lenovo Flex 3-1480. It's set up as dual-boot, Windows 10 and Ubuntu 16.04 LTS.

Can I just download 18.04 and install it over 16.04? If that were to happen, I won't lose any data or software. And I think it would still keep the Windows partition, since Windows 10 is already installed and has a partition/size on the hard drive.

Thanks,

Paul

[Dennis N]

You can get the newest Firefox by installing the Firefox snap package into Ubuntu 16.04. That would be without any risk to your data. Once the snap is installed, you can remove the original Firefox but don't need to.

[mörgæs]

If that were to happen, I won't lose any data or software.

You should backup your personal data and after that delete the old Ubuntu install completely. Don't recycle config files and the like as they could bring bad manners into the pristine new environment.

[lvm]

Any suggestions on how to go about upgrading to 18.04 LTS or 19.10?Paul

Try

sudo do-release-upgrade

You might need to run

sudo apt-get install update-manager-core

before that if update manager is not installed and backing up /etc and /home is definitely recommended.

[Impavidus]

It seems you've had trouble installing upgrades for quite a while. You should be at Firefox 72 by now. And it's not just Firefox, most likely a lot of your software is outdated.

There are two things we can try. First, we can try to get your upgrades working again. 16.04 is still supported (for about 15 months), so that may do it. If you want to attempt this, try updating via the command line and show us the output. It may give us some useful error messages:
sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Or you can simply wipe your system and move on to a more recent release of Ubuntu. You'll have to do that within 15 months anyway, so you can do so just as well right now. Release upgrades don't fix the package manager (and are unlikely to work, given that your package manager is broken), so make it a fresh install. To make the problem go away, make it a clean install, formatting the partition. If your documents are on a separate partition, you can keep them, but make backups anyway. Also wipe your user config files. Much of what's in there is no longer relevant and may cause problems.

I recommend the second option: a clean install.

[TheFu]

+1 for Impavidus's post to do update/upgrade cycle. DO NOT attempt the do-release-upgrade until you are fully patched with no warnings or errors first. Also, before doing any release-upgrade, a full system backup is mandatory.

I'm on 16.04. My system was patched last Saturday:

$ dpkg -l |grep firefox
ii firefox 72.0.1+build1-0ubuntu0.16.04.1 amd64 Safe and easy web browser from Mozilla
I'm not using any PPA or snaps.

[ewog]

Good morning, Everyone -

Appreciate the quick responses! I'm taking this one step at a time, so here is what I found. I followed Impavidus' advice for Update command, and here are the results:

ktm@LittleMan:~$ apt update
Reading package lists... Done
W: chmod 0700 of directory /var/lib/apt/lists/partial failed - SetupAPTPartialDirectory (1: Operation not permitted)
E: Could not open lock file /var/lib/apt/lists/lock - open (13: Permission denied)
E: Unable to lock directory /var/lib/apt/lists/
W: Problem unlinking the file /var/cache/apt/pkgcache.bin - RemoveCaches (13: Permission denied)
W: Problem unlinking the file /var/cache/apt/srcpkgcache.bin - RemoveCaches (13: Permission denied)

ktm@LittleMan:~$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for ktm:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
All packages are up to date.
ktm@LittleMan:~$ ^C

I don't understand why running APT UPDATE from a lower level of authority yields "Operation Not Permitted" and "Permission Denied" messages, yet SUDO APT UPDATE yields that all is well with the world and all packages are up to date.

I'm not versed well enough in Linuxese to understand all the nuances of the various errors, so will await a more seasoned translation.

Thanks!

Paul

[CelticWarrior]

Installing software requires privileges, hence the need for 'sudo' and the reason for the error messages without it.

Also run 'sudo apt upgrade' or 'sudo apt full-upgrade' after 'sudo apt update', the latter merely refreshes the list of available packages, it doesn't actually installs the updates even if available. Not doing this is the reason you now have an obsolete Firefox version.

[TheFu]

All Unix-based systems are multi-user from the beginning. Anything which will modify the entire system will need to have elevated privileges.

While users can install some software from source or script packages, the APT system is system-wide. Only a process running with elevated privileges can accomplish that. On Ubuntu systems, sudo is the most common method to achieve this. On a multi-user system, most users wouldn't have that right so they cannot harm the system, just their personal files.

Because Unix permissions are implemented at the base "file" level, there isn't anyway around them ... cough ... unlike 1 other OS.

APT is the entire package management system. There are different front-end interfaces into it. Most have similar capabilities, but a few have some extra capabilities.

apt is a script front end for apt-get. It is intended to do the most common things and it will cleanup older kernels, which is desirable. apt search is very handy too. I use apt most of the time.

apt-get is the historical tool and still used commonly. The main times I use apt-get anymore is because it supports package-name-globbing. It is nice to remove entire subsystems that aren't wanted using a wildcard.

aptitude is a tool that will provide alternative dependency solutions. Most of the time, that isn't needed, but if you are trying to use a specific DBMS or MTA, the default dependency solution might tell APT to uninstall the DBMS you have/want and install something else. I've had this happen when using apt-get and it took down a project management server at work. aptitude was able to figure out the issue and correct it ... after about 30 minutes of downtime.

Then there are the GUI tools like "Software Center" and "Synaptic". I haven't used SC ever and haven't used Synaptic in about 8+ yrs. Synaptic shows all the available packages, which can be confusing for new users who don't understand about libraries. Software Center hides libraries (I understand) and recent versions include snap packages.

All of them read and write to the APT database. It is safe to use any of those APT front-ends based on your personal preference.

[ewog]

Thanks, CelticWarrrior, for the advice to also run SUDO APT UPGRADE. Will do so later this evening.

I do want to share this development. Today the infrequent "Update" notification came on in the upper-right corner (red triangle). I clicked it and started the process of downloading 1,672 new files. Installation began, and a Terminal window opened, showed a lot of script and commands being run, then closed. Then nothing happened. Waited about 30 mins, then logged out and restarted the machine. When Ubuntu opened it was still 16.04 LTS. I opened System Settings, and the "Install Updates" button was active, so I clicked it. The following screenshots are the messages I received. At the end of it all, no update to 18 or 19, still running 16.04 LTS, still no 'Update' icon in the System Settings listings.

[ewog]

The 4 screenshots are attached.

[Impavidus]

I've not enough information to tell you exactly what's going on. Maybe the system didn't automatically check for updates, but after you checked manually (running sudo apt update), it reported avialable upgrades. You installed the upgrades. Next the system offered to upgrade to 18.04. But it seems that release upgrade failed.

Do you now have Firefox 72? If so, I assume you succeeded in installing all upgrades for 16.04. That gives you a secure system for the moment, but there may still be problems. We don't know if the regular upgrades all get installed more or less automatically and I don't think an attempt to release upgrade to 18.04 will work. Best to plan for a fresh install of 18.04, when you've got the time and you've checked your backups.

[ewog]

Good afternoon, Impavidus -

Thanks for checking my error messages. Firefox is still at version 63, which is most likely a moot point at this juncture. So, here are the latest developments:

Fired up Ubuntu, ran SUDO APT UPDATE and SUDO APT UPGRADE in that order. Copied and pasted the results into a text document, saved to my desktop. Went into Ubuntu Software Center to see if I could rustle up a history of installed updates. No such means to produce a list, but there was a listing of installed updates (icons, name and description) with a Remove button by each one. There were 47 downloaded updates to install, the first one having an OS icon. I thought maybe that was why nothing was changed. So I clicked the Install button, and waited. A few minutes later the install graphic showed 100%, and during the installation a message appeared which said I would need to restart the machine to fully complete the install. Did so immediately. Since then I cannot get Ubuntu to boot/load. It hangs mid-point in the process, and the screen flashes between blank, blank with the cursor in the center, then a flash of text in the upper left corner - pictures of text attached, or displaying the Unbuntu logo along with the 5 dots turning from white to red to white.

So I cannot access the text file with the results of the UPDATE/UPGRADE commands. I've tried launching Ubuntu in all the available Safe/Recovery modes available, and all end up hanging at some point. So it appears my only resort will be to do a complete new load of 18.04, without being able to first uninstall 16.04.

If it's of any help, I'm pasting into the next Reply links to the text from the history.log and history.term files (I copied them to an external drive prior to restarting - don't know why I didn't do the same for the UPDATE/UPGRADE file). Each was too big to upload (max TXT file size is 19.5 kb).

284900284901

[ewog]

Links to the History and Term files:

History
https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/Z9GWGz5S9H/

Term
https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/w5fyG8wK56/

[mörgæs]

So it appears my only resort will be to do a complete new load of 18.04, without being able to first uninstall 16.04.


Better to pick 19.10.
Do a live boot, back up personal files, erase all Ubuntu partitions using Gparted and install 19.10 in the empty space.

Judging from your other threads the problem has lasted almost a year. When the new install runs you should change all passwords which have been entered in Ubuntu during that time.

[Impavidus]

I never use Ubuntu Software Centre, or whatever its exact name is. To be friendly to new users, it hides all technical details. For more advanced users and all users who want to fix problems, those technical details are important.

Most problems on Ubuntu can be fixed, but there is a time when a fresh install is better. We haven't come any closer to finding the root cause of your problem. You've been running an old version of Firefox for over a year (Firefox 64 was released in December 2018) and probably of other software too. There are known security problems with this old software and there is a possibility that somebody has taken advantage of that. So, stop your attempts to fix this. Make it a fresh install.

Usually I recommend LTS releases (like 18.04 and 20.04) for users who don't like upgrading, but in de final 6 months before the next LTS release you can just as well install the latest short term support release and upgrade to the next LTS in May. 18.04 or 19.10, it's your choice. If you pick 18.04 you'll have to upgrade to 20.04 before April 2023, if you pick 19.10 you'll have to upgrade to 20.04 before July this year. That's the advantage of 18.04. 19.10 has more recent software than 18.04 and, as it's more similar to 20.04, an upgrade from 19.10 to 20.04 is more likely to succeed than from 18.04.

Create a live disk and boot it to test. I don't really expect any problems. You'll be able to access the installed Ubuntu 16.04 system on your hard drive. If you wish, you can copy any files you want to keep to an external drive. Use it to backup all your documents that haven't been backed up already. Forget about your configuration files. Half of them are obsolete, so it's best to do some cleanup.

Operating systems are uninstalled by formatting their partitions. You can use gparted to format the partition beforehand or start the installer, use the "something else" option at the partitioning stage and tell it to format and use the old Ubuntu partition there.

[webaake]

Yes, as already mentioned; Software Center is too user friendly and Synaptic Package Manager is more powerful. Install it by:

sudo apt install synaptic

Start it from your System menu. In Synaptic you can for example temporarily disable third party repos and then update/upgrade your 16.04 installation. Third party repos may often cause problems when updating/upgrading.

Also, using apt from commandline gives you much more detailed information on whats going on, than any of the GUI:s.

I'd recommend going to 18.04 from your 16.04. That'll give you a good stable platform for future upgrades and more.

[Impavidus]

Start it from your System menu. In Synaptic you can for example temporarily disable third party repos and then update/upgrade your 16.04 installation. Third party repos may often cause problems when updating/upgrading.


I like synaptic too. It was the default GUI package manager when I first used Ubuntu back in 2006. However, OP is too deep into trouble for that now. Chances are it won't even install.

[ewog]

Good afternoon -

Success in launching a live version of 19.10, and copying the UPDATE/UPGRADE file from the old 16.04 LTS desktop. Here is the result of SUDO APT UPDATE and SUDO APT UPGRADE:

ktm@LittleMan:~$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for ktm:
Hit:1 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu bionic InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
1264 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
ktm@LittleMan:~$ sudo apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
python3-aptdaemon.pkcompat : Conflicts: packagekit
Conflicts: packagekit:i386
E: Broken packages
ktm@LittleMan:~$ ^C
ktm@LittleMan:~$


I notice that this Upgrade has a total of 1264 packages, whereas the one which downloaded by using the Upgrade option off the desktop had 1462. Other than that, I have to admit I wouldn't know where to begin to find, let alone fix, the problem in 16.04 LTS.

At this point it may be best to just wipe the Ubuntu partition and load 19.10. But, the learning part of me would kind of like to go through the exercise of figuring out the problem and applying the solution. Let me know if you think the later is even possible at this time, given I can't launch 16.04, and would have to repair any files by accessing it via a live session of 19.10.

Thanks!

Paul

[rsteinmetz70112]

While people here want to help I'm afraid you have now created a monster.
Upgrading form 16.04 to 18.04 is a supported upgrade to "do-release=upgrade' Upgrading from 16.04 to 19.10 via a liveinstall is very likely to have serious problems.

I'll shut-up now and see if anyone has experienced with this situation.

[Impavidus]

At this point it may be best to just wipe the Ubuntu partition and load 19.10. But, the learning part of me would kind of like to go through the exercise of figuring out the problem and applying the solution. Let me know if you think the later is even possible at this time, given I can't launch 16.04, and would have to repair any files by accessing it via a live session of 19.10.
Theoretically it can be repaired from your 19.10 live disk, but even for an expert user it would be a significant effort. You'd spend the next week copying commands from the forum and copying the output back and if you don't have pretty good Linux skills yourself, it would mostly be incomprehensible code magic, so you wouldn't learn much. I think both of us have better things to do with our time.

Upgrading form 16.04 to 18.04 is a supported upgrade to "do-release=upgrade' Upgrading from 16.04 to 19.10 via a liveinstall is very likely to have serious problems.
Indeed, an upgrade wouldn't work. The plan is to completely wipe the 16.04 system and fresh install 19.10.

[ewog]

Good morning -

Thank you all -

Dennis N, mörgæs, lvm, Impavidus, TheFu, CelticWarrior, webaake, rsteinmetz70112 -



for the time you've given, plus the help and guidance on this issue. I'll be moving forward with a fresh install of 19.10 today, then the planned update/upgrade later this summer or fall.

Impavidus - I appreciate your candid comments on trying to repair 16.04! Agreed, it is way above my experience/skill level with Ubuntu/Linux, so very likely most of it would just appear to be magic, and little would be retained for future use. And getting this far has used more time than I expected anyone to volunteer.

Again, thanks everyone!

Paul

[Impavidus]

Upgrading later this summer or fall is fine if you're on the southern hemisphere. Upgrade to 20.04 mid July this year at the latest. The upgrade should be available by late April.