gpg: failed to create temporary file '/var/lib/lurker/.#lk0x57354100.hantslug.org.uk.14123': Permission denied
gpg: keyblock resource '/var/lib/lurker/pubring.gpg': Permission denied
gpg: Signature made Wed May 23 22:23:21 2007 BST
gpg: using DSA key 019AD0D8166C4BF0
gpg: Can't check signature: No public key
On Tuesday 22 May 2007 22:04, Alan Pope wrote:
> Hi Adam,
>
> On Tue, 2007-05-22 at 20:27 +0100, Adam Trickett wrote:
> > A friend upgraded his Ubuntu desktop system and now it doesn't boot
> > properly.
>
> Any more detail on what the exact nature of the problem is? Black
> screen?
After tonight's inspection here is what happened:
My mate did an upgrade via synaptic, but it was interrupted part way through.
He went on holiday and his missus was left with the box. The primary problem
was that there wasn't a valid initramfs for the default kernel.
I suggested recovery boot from GRUB over the phone but my friend's wife didn't
recognise the root shell prompt as a success. My suggestion was a first guess
to see if the a kernel could load and find a filesystem.
I went round and gave aptitude a prod, after several rounds of upgrades and
updates, and removing some lock files it eventually upgraded itself to
fiesty. It now boots perfectly well into GUI which is what his wife was
expecting.
> One thing Ubuntu does do is quiet boots with splash on by default. You
> might want to ask him to press ESC at GRUB and:-
>
> a) See if he can choose "recovery" it boots to a shell.
> b) Choose one of his old (pre 2.6.20 [likely to be 2.6.17]) kernel from
> edgy (6.10).
> c) Select the latest kernel that fails to boot, press 'e' to edit, then
> down one line, 'e' to edit again and then go to the end of the command
> line and remove "splash" and "quiet" from the line. Press enter, then
> 'b' to boot and see what it stops at.
>
> > I don't run Ubuntu myself and I don't have physical access to the system
> > at the moment so I'm not 100% sure as to what is going on, has anyone
> > else seen any upgrades go awry this week?
>
> Common causes of upgrade failures in the past:-
>
> Change from /dev/hda to /dev/sda, change from /dev/sda to UUID,
> installation on older release of dodgy binary video driver direct from
> *AHEM* manufacturer, use of dodgy """helper""" scripts to install
> drivers/applications {like envy and automatix}, use of apt-get
> dist-upgrade to upgrade rather than the recommended use of
> update-manager and so on...
>
> I'd say some of that paragraph to him and see what response you get. If
> light bulbs go on when you mention some of those things it might help
> the diagnosis.
>
> Where abouts is he? Can he live without it until the next meet? If it's
> near by I'd gladly go over there for a fixed period of time (say 2 hours
> max) in the evening for a small donation to the LUG.
>
> > If it doesn't boot in "safe" mode I'll probably go round and have a
> > look later
> > this week.
>
> Or you could do it ;)
>
> Cheers,
> Al.
--
Adam Trickett
Overton, HANTS, UK
The Internet? We are not interested in it.
-- Bill Gates, 1993
