Article 6F6R7 Help - Botched upgrade 18.04 to 22.04, how to re-install

Help - Botched upgrade 18.04 to 22.04, how to re-install

by
Cetag
from LinuxQuestions.org on (#6F6R7)
System is a M-Series ThinkCentre desktop, Intel-i5 8GB ram.
Was running Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, now it signs on with "Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS!"

The problem is a dist-upgrade from 18.04 to 22.04 was interrupted (power off) right in the middle of that process.
Now, at power-up, it signs on only so far, then freezes. The tale of the sign on messages is shown at bottom.

Quote:
Holding <shift> down at power-up, I get a GNU GRUB version 2.02;
*Ubuntu
Advanced options for Ubuntu
Memory test (memtest86+.elf)
Memory test (memtest86+.bin, serial console)

'enter to boot selected OS, e to edit commands, c for command-line, esc to exit.'
where 'c' drops me to a grub> prompt, with ESC to exit back to menu.

'Advanced options' drops me to this OS menu;
*Ubuntu, with Linux 5.4.0-91-generic
Ubuntu, with Linux 5.4.0-91-generic (recovery mode)
Ubuntu, with Linux 5.4.0-90-generic
Ubuntu, with Linux 5.4.0-90-generic (recovery mode)

selecting (recovery mode) shows the Recovery Menu of;
resume, clean, dpkg, fsck, grub, network, root, system-summary
where selecting root drops to the root shell prompt: root@ad64pc:~#
At present, I can boot to a root shell prompt as above. There, the fs and data seems all intact.

I can boot to an 18.04 on a USB RAM stick. This USB stick is probably the one used to install this 18.04 in the first place. Perhaps I should boot to a live 22.04 USB as there may be a recovery or repair feature there.

I have backed up the entire /home/username/ directory, dot directories and dot files included, to a USB drive. (I can see my Evolution mail in a .local/share/evolution/.. directory.)

UbuntuForums describes re-installing without effecting the existing data.
LinuxQuestions easy to re-install if on a seperate partition.
AskUbuntu on apt get dist-upgrade.

Can I re-start the dist-upgrade script from scratch, from the root prompt, and get a fresh kernel in grub boot, while maintaining my existing user data?

Is it possible to repair or replace all the packages, "upgrade by apt"? That wouldn't give me a fresh kernel, but may get the dist-upgrade process reset to run from scratch.

I can copy the /home/username/ directory across if necessary, but am hoping to avoid that as a last resort only.

Any comments queries or suggestions most welcome.

Tale of the messages where the system freezes at power-up;
Quote:
Welcome to Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
...
...
[FAILED] Failed to Listen on CUPS Scheduler
...
...
[FAILED] Failed to start GNOME Display Manager
See 'systemctl status gdm.service' for details
[ OK ] Starting Snap Daemon.
Starting Wait until snapd is fully seeded...
Starting Time and Date Service...
[ 45.914300] proc: Bad vaule for 'hidepid'
[ OK ] Started Time and Date Service.
[ OK ] Stopped GNOME Display Manager.
Starting Detect the available GPUs and deal with any system changes...
[ OK ] Finished Detect the available GPUs and deal with any system changes.
Starting GNOME Display manager...
[FAILED] Failed to start GNOME Display Manager
See 'systemctl status gdm.service' for details
[ OK ] Finished Wait until snapd is fully seeded
[ OK ] Reached target Multi-User System
[ OK ] Reached Target Graphical Interface
[ OK ] Start Stop ureadahead data collection 45s after complete startup.
Starting Record Runlevel Change in UTMP...
[ OK ] Finished Record Runlevel Change in UTMP.
[ 347.250950] proc: Bad value for 'hidepid'
External Content
Source RSS or Atom Feed
Feed Location https://feeds.feedburner.com/linuxquestions/latest
Feed Title LinuxQuestions.org
Feed Link https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/
Reply 0 comments