FYI Upgrading from Ubuntu 10.04 to 10.10

[greyseal96]

I just got done upgrading my Ubuntu guest from 10.04 to 10.10 and I thought that I'd post what I found just in case it helps anybody else.

The first time that I tried the upgrade, I was running VirtualBox PUEL v3.2.8. After taking a snapshot, I first updated the OS with all of the most recent updates. After that process was complete, I then attempted to upgrade the OS from 10.04 to 10.10. I don't think that this has anything to do with what happened later, but along the way I was asked if I wanted to keep or replace some custom files which were related to an installation of Likewise Open which I was evaluating. I opted to keep the files and went on. As the upgrade was coming to a close, I was prompted to remove obsolete or unnecessary packages (including the old kernel headers), which I chose to remove. After the reboot, I had to re-install the Guest Additions. As part of that installation, the GA are first removed. During the removal, I don't know any other way to describe what happened, other than to say that my screen went crazy and weird colors and letters popped up all over the screen. I'm assuming that as the GA got to the Xorg portion of whatever the installation process was doing, Xorg didn't like what had happened. I let the machine sit that way for about 10 minutes and figured that it wasn't going to recover. I then reset the guest and tried the installation again, with the same result.

I then remembered seeing somewhere that 10.10 had some sort of Xorg update. I searched the forums here and saw that the recommendation was to update to VirtualBox PUEL v3.2.10 to get the new Xorg 1.9 support. I shut down the Ubuntu guest and installed PUEL v3.2.10. After installation, I started the Ubuntu guest back up and attempted to upgrade the GA once again. I had the same crazy stuff happen again with the screen. After letting it sit for about 10 minutes (just in case it was still attempting to do something) I reset the guest. I tried the installation again and had the same result. But this time, after resetting the guest again, the guest hung while it was booting.

After hitting a dead end trying to upgrade the GA after the 10.10 upgrade, I thought that I would roll back to my snapshot and try updating the GA before the 10.10 upgrade. After reverting to the snapshot with 10.04, I once again updated the OS with all of the most recent updates. After that process completed, I then updated the GA to the latest version (3.2.10). I don't think that this has anything to do with the GA, but I uninstalled the Likewise Open software which I was evaluating. I then proceeded to upgrade the OS. I was once again prompted to remove obsolete/uneccessary packages, which I once again chose to remove. After reboot, I had to re-install the GA. This time, though, everything went smoothly. The GA installed without a hitch and I am up and running with Ubuntu 10.10.

So to sum it all up: Before upgrading to Ubuntu 10.10, try first upgrading VirtualBox to v3.2.10 and upgrading the Guest Additions. After that, proceed with the OS upgrade and all should go smoothly.

I am interested to hear if anybody else has had a similar experience. Also, many thanks to the VirtualBox team for the great software!

Regards,
John

[DJRWolf]

I had the same thing happen to me. Except I did not do a snapshot before I upgraded. Do I need to reinstall from scratch to get it back to 10.04?

[Sasquatch]

The fun with Linux is that if it boots to a CLI, you can always work with it and fix your GUI if needed. If the upgrade from 10.04 to 10.10 somehow screws up your GUI, then you simply drop to a TTY and fix it from the command line. You can install the new Guest Additions from there too, my Howto: Install Linux Guest Additions + Xorg config is written for the command line interface.