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waltinator
Asked: 2016-09-13 10:39:05 +0800 CST

Failed 14.04.5 to 16.04 upgrade - left with 159 pkgs to autoremove, 269 held back. What to do?

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Recently, I tried to upgrade Ubuntu from 14.04.5 to 16.04 by clicking Software Updater's box. As the installation was proceeding, it popped up a "14.04 system error" window, I clicked "Report", and immediately got a "16.04 system error" window. I clicked "Report" and got a locked screen. When I unlocked it, the update had ended. I rebooted, and the system was strange. I meddled with it, noticing problems with the sa-compile package. Since I don't need Tools for compiling SpamAssassin rules into C on this system, I apt-get remove --purge'd it. End of introductory tale.

As a result of a medded-with failed upgrade from 14.04.5 to 16.04, I'm left with apt-get telling me I have 159 packages to autoremove, and 269 held back.

As I see it, I have several choices (after I backup /home):

  1. Download a 16.04 ISO, start over.
  2. sudo apt-get autoremove and hope that I'm left with a runnable system to install the held back packages.
  3. Ignore the autoremove for now, and run sudo apt-get install --install-suggests --fix-broken --ignore-hold --with-new-pkgs --reinstall on the held back packages.
  4. Other?

Suggestions, requests for more data, ... ? I do have ssh access, as well as physical access.

16.04

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    With advice from @elder-geek: I reinspected the list of packages to be autoremoved, and used 

    sudo apt-get --dry-run autoremove

    as a final check, to make sure I wasn't about to autoremove the world.

    I ended up doing: 

    sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get autoremove

    Checking statuses, logs, the happiness of the packaging system, any anything else I could think of between each pair of steps.

    That system hasn't fallen over or misbehaved yet, and is lightly (due to my testing laziness) useable, so I'll declare this upgrade a success.

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