[Bug 1407125] [NEW] USBflashdrive install stalls/creates stealth Ubuntu install

2015-01-02 Thread George Langford
Public bug reported:

The package that I have been trying to install since early December is
Ubuntu 14.04.1.

First, I used the Universal USB Installer to create a Try Ubuntu ... 
installation on an 8GB DataStickPro USB flash drive.
This pendrive works great when plugged in to my Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop 
computer running WinXP SP3. In fact, I'm using it right now to communicate with 
launchPad.net.

However, I am actually trying to install Ubuntu on a Compaq (a.k.a. HP)
6430NX desktop with 2GB of RAM installed. Except for several Ethernet
cards (used for the desktop's late applcation as a SmoothWall hardware
firewall) the 6430NX has not been modified other than upgrading the RAM
from 500MB to 2GB (which tests OK with MemTest86). The graphics card is
an S3 Graphics Ltd. VT8375 (a.k.a. ProSavage in the Ubuntu drivers
nomenclature, I think).

The whole process of trying to install Ubuntu on the 6430NX has gone
badly from the beginning; I started the 6430NX with the Try Ubuntu ...
pendrive in a USB port, whereupon nothing at all happened ... or so I
thought.  I also tried it with the Live Ubuntu CD's for the full 64-bit
and i386 installs (DVD and CDROM, respectively) after making appropriate
BIOS settings.

What I ended up with, which I discovered while the 6430NX's hard drive
was USB-connected to this laptop, was a broken Ubuntu installation that
had installed itself without any progress indication and without
prompting me or asking me for any actions at all.

I managed to get that installation patched to the extent of a messy
Unity GUI which was slower than anthing you could possibly imagine (at
the time the 6430NX had only the original 500MB of RAM) ... so I
upgraded the RAM to 2GB. The GUI worked a little better but the display
resolution and aspect ratio were not right for the Samsung SyncMaster
2253BW monitor.  I switched to a Philips 107S monitor and to the lightdm
display manager ... and then back to the 2253BW monitor, where I am
stuck with a system whose GUI will not permit me to enter anything via
the installed physical keyboard. The resolution is OK (jpg images look
great with Image Viewer) but the aspect ratio is still wrong and the GUI
really has no idea how big the screen is - full screen upsizes a given
window to about 40% of the monitor area -  and there is no Displays
application or display file ... never has been.

I made a couple of other bug reports
(https://bugs.launchpad.net/glade2script/+bug/1406783 and
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lightdm/+bug/1406970) and
asked Question #2599889, but now I am ready to throw in the towel and
start over.

Here's the rub: I can set up a mount point and mount the Try Ubuntu
... pendrive, and I can even access it via File Manager, but even when
I ask wubi.exe to install Ubuntu via Wine, when I see the GUI popup
asking me to take that critical step, upon rebooting, the Try Ubuntu
... discourse opens up and executes its three little beeps, I can do
more than run MemTest86 (which runs OK and tests the RAM OK), but if I
select the uppermost option, Try Ubuntu ... the LED on the pendrive
flashes for about six minutes, then glows steady until I give up at ten
minutes ... with no other indication from the system -  no new window,
no progress bar, no further popups ... nothing.

The original 250GB hard drive was in the as-received, refurbished-by-
MicroCenter condition when I started this whole process, because I had
expected the pendrive installation to handle the reformatting process
with appropriate interaction with me. The entire 250GB hard drive ended
up with a primary partition formatted ext4 and the two imaginary
partitions that linux normally creates without any intervention from me.
I later rearranged this setup by resizing the original primary partition
with gparted (running while the 250GB hard drive was USB-connected to
the Dell laptop) to ca. 50GB, adding another 50GB primary partition,
also formatted ext4, and a third primary partition formatted FAT32 for
data.  Those changes had no effect at all on the performance of the iffy
Ubuntu installation. That's where things stand right now.

I plug the pendrive into a USB port on the 6430NX, whereupon it
automatically mounts into my selected USB flash mount point, allows me
to open wubi.exe with wine (previously installed in the iffy Ubuntu
setup), pops up (a little while after wine is activated) a GUI window
wherein I select Install Ubuntu ... (not the text-based window that
the pendrive usually boots up with when I restart the laptop with the
pendrive in place) and the pendrive starts blinking ...

What do I do to get that pendrive to continue the intended process ?
What I would really like to do is execute a working Ubuntu installation
in that second primary ext4 partition (50GB in size) on the 6430NX
desktop PC  and then delete everything in the original 50GB ext4
partition, reformat that as FAT32, and use it also for data.

** Affects: ubuntu
 Importance: Undecided
 Status: 

[Bug 1407125] Re: USBflashdrive install stalls/creates stealth Ubuntu install

2015-01-02 Thread George Langford
As the 250GB hard drive from the 6430NX destop PC works OK when
connected via USB to the Dell Inspiron 1545 laptop, I ought to be able
to execute an install from the Try Ubuntu ... pendrive in the 1545
laptop, but I want that to go into the second 50GB, ext4 primary
partition on the USB-connected 250GB hard drive, not into my 1545
laptop.

The impression I get from poking around is that the Try Ubuntu ...
pendrive wants to take over the entire 250GB hard drive, which is
definitely something that I do not want to happen.

What sort of dialog will open if I attempt to initiate this process
during the bootup of the laptop with the Try Ubuntu ... pendrive
plugged in ? Can I simply wait, plug in the USB-connected 250GB hard
drive, and see what happens, which would hopefully be an appropriate
addition to the list of prospective target drives ?

Do I select the Install Ubuntu item in that opening dialog, and then
plug in the USB-connected 250GB hard drive (with its destination 50GB,
ext4 primary partition) ?

Do I have to adjust the BIOS of the laptop (it is presently ordered this
way: First, USB-HDD, then CDROM, then Floppy (though none exists unless
I use USB_floppy) then Hard Drive) ?

Which USB would the BIOS select if I restart the laptop with both USB
devices attached ?

As you can see, there are too many alternatives for using just guesswork
to accomplish this installation.

I do know that if I start the Try Ubuntu. .. function of that pendrive
in the 1545 laptop and then plug in the USB-connected 250GB hard drive,
that the live Ubuntu OS will automount any one or all of the primary
partitions on the 250GB, USB-connected hard drive, and even the
poartitions on the main disk drive of the 1545 laptop ... and I can also
unmount any one or all of those three paritions on the 250GB hard drive
and the partitions on the laptop's 500GB hard drive. So I do have some
control.

It would seem that I can get the 250GB hard drive plugged in to the USB
port after starting the Try Ubuntu ... dialog, mount the intended
target 50GB, ext4 partition, make sure that the laptop's partitions and
the other two 250GB hard drive's partitions are _not_ mounted, select
wubi.exe and open that with wine, select the Install Ubuntu choice on
the GUI popup that should appear, and then reboot the 1545 laptop, whose
BIOS is currently set to boot first from USB-HDD.  Can I set the BIOS so
both the first and second bootup devices are USB's ? It all depends on
how much control I will have of the target partition after I initiate
that process ...

I cannot do a network install with that 250GB hard drive installed in
the 6430NX, because I cannot enter any text in Firefox except after I
get connected to a previously bookmarked website, and the present iffy
Ubuntu installation cannot cope with the external USB pendrive or with a
DVD or CDROM drive, even though it can read any one of them with File
Manager.

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Title:
  USBflashdrive install stalls/creates stealth Ubuntu install

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[Bug 1406970] [NEW] package lightdm 1.10.3-0ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1

2015-01-01 Thread George Langford
Public bug reported:

This installation has not succeeded in getting past a login page with a
menu bar at the top that has my network name at upper left and some
additional menu icons at top right, including a classic gnome menu
containing just three items: high contrast, on-screen keyboard, and read
[something-or-other], The only thing I could do with this is use the on-
screen keyboard to enter my password.

Entering my password after selecting gnome classic (or ubuntu or gnome
default) produces lots of hard drive activity but nothing further - the
OS sticks at an orange wallpaper screen that thankfully fits the monitor
with Ubunto 14.04 LTS at lower left. No menus to select from ... no menu
bar.

While mucking about to try to get past this impasse, I found this error message 
after entering: sudo lightdm --test-mode from the Terminal console:
 failed to use bus name 
org.freedesktop.DisplayManager

Searching on that term in Google, I came upon an answer with these
instructions:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure gdm #select gdm
sudo apt-get remove lightdm* --purge
sudo reboot
sudo apt-get install lightdm*

whereupon the dpkg-reconfigure screen came up automatically (that had
been the fifth instruction in the list above) and I selected lightdm.

Upon rebooting I got a series of error messages culminating in this bug
report.

My next step will be to go through an analogous ritual to attempt a
reinstall of gdm, which also fails on startup.

I am using Ubuntu 14.04 on an HP 6430NX that has 2GB of RAM, a Philips
107S monitor, a Pro Savage 8KM266/KL266 video card, a.k.a. S3 Graphics
LTD VT8375, and a 250GB hard drive with three primary partitions (two
ext4 and one FAT32) a swap partition, and an extended partition.

The present installation of Ubuntu was from a USB flash drive that works
fine with a Dell Inspiron laptop, but which gives no graphical or
textual feedback at all when connected to the USB port of the 6430NX
computer (set to boot from a USB HDD in bios). I discovered the Ubunto
installation when I connected the 250 GB hard drive via USB to the
Inspiron laptop while using gparted to realign and create the present
partition structure. However, changing the paritions had no effect
whatsoever on the present lack-of-usable-GUI behavior.

I am George Langford, a.k.a. amenex.

Note: this bug screen does not like the package name I entered (lightdm
1.10.3 -0ubuntu2) but that is exactly what the error message said it is.

ProblemType: Package
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: lightdm 1.10.3-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-43.72-generic 3.13.11.11
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-43-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.6
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Jan  1 12:37:36 2015
DuplicateSignature: package:lightdm:1.10.3-0ubuntu2:subprocess installed 
post-removal script returned error exit status 1
ErrorMessage: subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit 
status 1
LightdmConfig:
 [SeatDefaults]
 user-session=mythbuntu
 allow-guest=false
 #autologin-user=
LightdmGreeterLog:
 ** (lightdm-gtk-greeter:1294): WARNING **: Failed to load user background: 
Failed to open file '/home/george/Pictures/BackYard10062014.jpg': No such file 
or directory
 
 ** (lightdm-gtk-greeter:1294): WARNING **: Failed to load user image: Failed 
to open file '/home/george/.face': No such file or directory
SourcePackage: lightdm
Title: package lightdm 1.10.3-0ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess 
installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

** Affects: lightdm (Ubuntu)
 Importance: Undecided
 Status: New


** Tags: apport-package i386 trusty

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Title:
  package lightdm 1.10.3-0ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess
  installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1

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[Bug 1406970] Re: package lightdm 1.10.3-0ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1

2015-01-01 Thread George Langford
With continuing attention to this bug I discovered that I could select
Lubuntu at login and that this got me to a proper Desktop with full
access to the OS's procedures, accessories and applications, including
the other primary partitions on the hard drive and to my LAN.

See Question 259840, which I marked as solved.

The bug reported here did not repeat on several restarts, although
attempts to start Ubuntu, Gnome-Classic, and Gnome via this same route
(a long list of alternatives being presented at login) all produced
crashes or negative outcomes. As always, I could get to the Terminal in
nearly all cases with contr+alt+F*.

Hence, the bug reported here shows tons of information about my
installation history, which may yet prove quite useful, this bug isn't
bugging me any more ... the dskyop PC is now useful again.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1406970

Title:
  package lightdm 1.10.3-0ubuntu2 failed to install/upgrade: subprocess
  installed post-removal script returned error exit status 1

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