upgrading xubuntu 23.10 to 24.04.
I purged a broken package that was blocking upgrades with sudo dpkg -P libfreerdp2-2 and immediately afterwards I executed sudo apt get upgrade. It unleashed a list of 96 packages to upgrade totaling 900 MB of data.
However, if I press yes on ‘do you want to continue?’ wlan is off wlan is on, nmtui clearly shows it activated, but each time I try upgrading, updating, autoremoving, or install --fix-missing I get:
E: failed to fetch http… initramfs-tools-core… could not connect to 127.0.0.1, connection refused.
(I can write the whole address if you need it)
Some other contributors suggest I use a live usb, not installing the OS but using the live usb with working wlan to complete the installation, but this seems to be more complicated than working directly from initramfs.
Some other contributors suggest I use a live usb, not installing the OS but using the live usb with working wlan to complete the installation, but this seems to be more complicated than working directly from initramfs.
My suggestion was to use live usb to find your /home files. Indeed using live usb and then using chroot to complete the upgrade from 23.10 to 24.04 is maybe more difficult (As /dev and /proc and /sys need to get mounted with the chroot). If I were you I would first find your /home files and make a backup and after that proceed with upgrading.
yes, do this.
hi, thanks for your input.
Small breakthrough: I booted the system without problems to tty1 (I believe this is called single user mode), logged in as an old user and now I can see all my data, logged in as old me. Do you still recommend to backup from live usb and upgrade from there?
NMTUI shows that wlan works
Small breakthrough: I booted the system without problems to tty1 (I believe this is called single user mode), logged in as an old user and now I can see all my data, logged in as old me.
Nice.
Do you still recommend to backup from live usb and upgrade from there?
I would backup from live usb and then when that is done stop using the live usb, reboot and try to upgrade via the recovery mode.
i think you have to start the service that configures your network. maybe you have to load the kernel module for the wifi adapter before that, idk.
however, it’s weird you have to do this from initramfs . why doesn’t it boot further?
also, shouldn’t there be the old kernel and old initramfs from before the upgrade still available in your boot manager to choose somehow after the BIOS is done?
Small breakthrough: I booted the system without problems to tty1 (I believe this is called single user mode), logged in as an old user and now I can see all my data, logged in as old me. Do you still recommend to backup from live usb and upgrade from there?
NMTUI shows that wlan works
me? i didn’t recommend that. if you have your wifi, you could update now. however, if you don’t have a backup yet, you should 100% make one. i always make fresh backups before a dist upgrade. (everyone hates the way I’m doing it, but it works really well. i just tar every important fs with --one-file-system on a 1TB USB stick. if they don’t break at writing, they will be able to store the data much longer than i would need.) meaning, in your situation I would already have one and it sounds like you forgot that step, but idk.
Using a live usb is the correct answer since compiling a custom initramfs would require one anyway and just add more steps… Not sure what gives you the impression using a liveusb is “more complicated” but its not.
Enabling WiFi won’t help you connect to 127.0.0.1. That’s an address on your local computer. Ubuntu will generally download every package before starting the upgrade, so if it fails to boot, the packages are already on your system.
To get internet, your best option may be to hook your phone up to your computer through USB and enabling tethering mode. If your phone is connected to the WiFi, it’ll just become a WiFi dongle for your computer. Many WiFi cards built into computers require firmware that’s not necessarily available in initramfs, but the USB ethernet drivers generally are.
If you don’t have a phone with tethering support, you could try to manually start wpa-supplicant, if-up the interface and cross your fingers, but that’s more trouble than it’s worth in my opinion.
If you have enabled snapshots through something like Snapper or Timeshift, I’d recommend switching back to the last snapshot before the upgrade attempt and trying again.
If you don’t, I recommend either doing a clean install (copying over your home directory and any other user-modified directories) or booting a live installer, setting up a chroot, and trying to fix the issue from there.
The best way to fix broken upgrades is probably to remove all packages from non-Ubuntu sources (PPAs and such) and then try to apt install -t + apt upgrade + apt dist-upgrade until all packages are installed. You can try to reinstall the broken PPA packages again after that, but there’s a good chance you’ll break your system again.
I get the feeling the RDP package you removed wasn’t actually the one that broke everything (in my experience, this generally happens when another package sharing dependencies with it from a non-Ubuntu source caused a library conflict).
Isn’t it easier if you clean install instead of upgrade?
That’s the main issue that make me dislike apt and like pacman so much. Apt always (with me) mess the system when upgrading from a version to another.
easiest thing to do would be to get a usb to ethernet dongle and just do it normally. otherwise you need to do wpa_supplicant. see here: https://www.marcfargas.com/2017/12/enable-wireless-networks-in-debian-initramfs/
however im confused as you cannot use apt from the initramfs console. will your system actually boot into linux or are you being dropped to the recovery console?
It will take a bunch of work to do what you’re asking.
You will have an easier time booting a usb and doing chroot and fixing it that way.
