[ale] Dell Mini 12 Ubuntu problems

[Brian Pitts]

On 12/01/2009 09:10 PM, Ken Cochran wrote:
>> 'lsb_release -d' should show it. 2.6.24 is 8.04
> 
> Ubuntu 8.04.1

Hmm, on my computer running 8.04 the output is "Ubuntu 8.04.3 LTS"

> Nope, I clicked on the little taskbar icon that appears to be
> its version of (barf) Windows Update.  It appears to pull a
> package-info list/database & then scans that.  (?)  Where is
> info on what 'apt-get {update,dist-upgrade}' do?  In other
> words, will those commands bring v8 current or will they take
> the "packaging" to v9?  At this point I'm not keen on moving
> the system to v9.  (It's not mine but a friend's and I don't
> have any way (yet) to reinstall an OS on it unless I could
> fetch something that could install from a USB thumb drive.)

That won't change the version. You can upgrade to a new version using
the "little taskbar icon" or the do-release-upgrade command line tool.
The apt-get commands are a way of keeping your current version up to date.

I suspect that something about your system's package management is
borked and the graphical upgrade manager is failing to do its job. Any
chance your friend turned the laptop off during the middle of an
upgrade? Running the apt-get commands from a terminal may fail too, but
at least they'll be more verbose about the problems.

>>
>> What's the output of 'xulrunner --gre-version'? What files are in
>> /etc/gre.d/?
> 
> xulrunner says "command not found"; whereis only shows
>   /usr/lib/xulrunner/plugins
> which has "flashplugin-alternative.so" which is symlinked to
>   /etc/alternatives/xulrunner-flashplugin
> 
> /etc/gre.d/
>   1.9.0.5.system.conf
>   1.9.0.8.system.conf.dpkg-new

You shouldn't be seeing files named *dpkg-new. This does look like an
upgrade failed.

>>> So far, the only thing I can make work is terminal.
>>> Would also like to make sure such things as Java and Adobe
>>> bits are up to date too.
>>
>> If you installed the from the Ubuntu repositories (sun-java6-plugin and
>> flashplugin-nonfree) you keep them up-to-date like anything else.
>
> Which is how?  (Sorry to appear to dumb; I'm definitely an Ubuntu newbie.)

The graphical update manager you already found. I think you'll find this
link useful.

https://help.ubuntu.com/8.04/add-applications/C/index.html

-- 
All the best,
Brian Pitts