OT: Strange boot behavior after upgrade on Asus chromebook
This posting is slightly off-topic because the OS in
question is Ubuntu, which I ended up using because the
chromebook install procedure seemed better documented. (It
took me a few days to get any non-chrome install to
succeed.)
It is possibly on-topic because
* I am a debian user
* it relates to upstart, which has been considered as
an alternative to sysvinit
* Debian users may be interested in some of the differences
between debian and ubuntu.
* It reports an actual user experience
The PC is a $200 chromebook that I set up for my dad to use.
I visit him a few couple times a year, so I try
to keep the system simple and reliable as possible.
After logging on I get a message something like this on the
console:
Hey! An upgrade is available for your LTS Trusty
installation. It includes 265 security updates.
run "do-release-upgrade" to get the goods.
I'm thinking it will be simple. And security
is good, right? Hah hah!
tl;dr: At least it still boots.
First, LTS signified to me that it is an upgrade
intended to keep compatibility and stability.
Boy was that wrong!
Next thing that stood out, is that the progress
output messages during the upgrade are
different enough to suggest a lot of engineering
has gone into it. Not all good, IMO.
It took a few iterations for the full upgrade to be
completed, probably because I'd (wisely it turns out) let
a couple years lapse since the initial installation.
Then lots of the usual questions during the upgrade.
Do I keep the original config file or use the
developer's version?
Answering a lot of these questions starts to numb your
brain, and trying to get through quickly, I made two
mistakes:
First, I accidentally consented to replacing /etc/sudoers. Duh!
That was a small one. Next was saying "yes" to install
grub-pc on /dev/sda.
What was stupid about that is that the chromebook is very
finicky about booting. I shouldn't have touched it at all,
but was somehow afraid that if I didn't, the upgraded
kernel versions might not be started.
Additional stupidity was not backing up the system.
I'm so used to my sid upgrades going without hiccups
that I forgot that upgrades are actually akin
to brain surgery in terms of the chances of something
going wrong.
Now the kicker: When booting, I first get some
frightening message about selinux not being found.
Then I get the login prompt, with no cursor, no
terminal echo, and login fails.
Is this due to upstart? Or grub-pc?
I'm getting ready for a horrible nightmare...
Then, oh beneficence! Thanks to muscle memory, I randomly
type WindowsKey RightArrow (an i3 window manager key
binding). Lo and behold! The screen clears and I get a fresh
login prompt *with* echo (still no cursor) and login
succeeds this time.
I tried rebooting again, a few times, and found
I always need this key combination.
(I didn't investigate if other key combinations will
work.)
Although having to do this probably this won't bother my dad,
I am ashamed of a Unix system being so arbitrary.
Ubuntu also sucks for this application because my dad uses
icewm, while Ubuntu includes heavy stuff like compiz and
gnome. Oh well, at least my foot is still basically intact!!
Cheers,
Joel
--
Joel Roth
Reply to: