Lucky Coincidence or Life of Linux User?
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Yesterday, for some reason I backed up all my user data on my Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS installation --- my main desktop that I use for daily work. Today, there was a Kernel update that I installed & ruined my installation. I have 2 screens running on a NVidia 1660 video card but after the kernel update the drivers wouldn't be recognized. So my screen was at 1024x768 X| and only 1 screen even worked. Crazy! I even booted off a USB stick with an only slightly older version of Ubuntu (without those kernel updates) and it all worked fine running from the stick!!! I wrote it up (to no avail) at AskUbuntu[^]. I wasted over 3 hours trying to get the drivers to work with the new kernel and/or attempting to back up to previous kernel. Finally I did a complete reinstall of Ubuntu and restored my data. About 1 hour later I was all back working again. Can't really believe I was able to do that so fast. This kind of catastrophic failure shouldn't happen...but it does.
In my setup - Fedora, not Ubuntu - I always keep two version back of the kernel (it is a configuration thing, so I do not manage it manually on each update)... So if something went wrong, I can just pick during the boot the previous or the one before...
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." ― Albert Einstein
"It never ceases to amaze me that a spacecraft launched in 1977 can be fixed remotely from Earth." ― Brian Cox
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In my setup - Fedora, not Ubuntu - I always keep two version back of the kernel (it is a configuration thing, so I do not manage it manually on each update)... So if something went wrong, I can just pick during the boot the previous or the one before...
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." ― Albert Einstein
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Yesterday, for some reason I backed up all my user data on my Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS installation --- my main desktop that I use for daily work. Today, there was a Kernel update that I installed & ruined my installation. I have 2 screens running on a NVidia 1660 video card but after the kernel update the drivers wouldn't be recognized. So my screen was at 1024x768 X| and only 1 screen even worked. Crazy! I even booted off a USB stick with an only slightly older version of Ubuntu (without those kernel updates) and it all worked fine running from the stick!!! I wrote it up (to no avail) at AskUbuntu[^]. I wasted over 3 hours trying to get the drivers to work with the new kernel and/or attempting to back up to previous kernel. Finally I did a complete reinstall of Ubuntu and restored my data. About 1 hour later I was all back working again. Can't really believe I was able to do that so fast. This kind of catastrophic failure shouldn't happen...but it does.
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Yesterday, for some reason I backed up all my user data on my Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS installation --- my main desktop that I use for daily work. Today, there was a Kernel update that I installed & ruined my installation. I have 2 screens running on a NVidia 1660 video card but after the kernel update the drivers wouldn't be recognized. So my screen was at 1024x768 X| and only 1 screen even worked. Crazy! I even booted off a USB stick with an only slightly older version of Ubuntu (without those kernel updates) and it all worked fine running from the stick!!! I wrote it up (to no avail) at AskUbuntu[^]. I wasted over 3 hours trying to get the drivers to work with the new kernel and/or attempting to back up to previous kernel. Finally I did a complete reinstall of Ubuntu and restored my data. About 1 hour later I was all back working again. Can't really believe I was able to do that so fast. This kind of catastrophic failure shouldn't happen...but it does.
A couple of comments from a seasoned* Ubuntu LTS user (22.04 currently installed on 7 machines here):
raddevus wrote:
Yesterday, for some reason I backed up all my user data
You haven't set up deja-dup to back up your stuff every day in the small hours? I have it running everywhere, some backing up locally to an SD card ("zero slot" option), others to my home server (over ssh, ED25519 keys - no password logon allowed!). I also have various cron jobs running rsync to replicate stuff in an accessible form around the room.
raddevus wrote:
Today, there was a Kernel update that I installed & ruined my installation.
If you have anything within a light-year of the the default GRUB setup, your previous kernel will still be available on the boot menu (which you may have to poke something to see). Cheers, Peter * Many would choose a different term to describe me. ;P
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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That's the thing with Linux in my experience...it works great...until it doesn't. Have you tried re-applying that update that screwed everything in the first place?
dandy72 wrote:
That's the thing with Linux in my experience...it works great...until it doesn't.
I agree. I do understand that it is kind of a hobbyist's OS. But Ubuntu should be a step better than this really. I saw 3 other kernel versions in GRUB and tried each one of those but none of them would work either. I really had no idea what I was doing so I could've done something wrong but I just couldn't get it back.
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A couple of comments from a seasoned* Ubuntu LTS user (22.04 currently installed on 7 machines here):
raddevus wrote:
Yesterday, for some reason I backed up all my user data
You haven't set up deja-dup to back up your stuff every day in the small hours? I have it running everywhere, some backing up locally to an SD card ("zero slot" option), others to my home server (over ssh, ED25519 keys - no password logon allowed!). I also have various cron jobs running rsync to replicate stuff in an accessible form around the room.
raddevus wrote:
Today, there was a Kernel update that I installed & ruined my installation.
If you have anything within a light-year of the the default GRUB setup, your previous kernel will still be available on the boot menu (which you may have to poke something to see). Cheers, Peter * Many would choose a different term to describe me. ;P
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
Check out this snapshot of my GRUB choices -- I took a picture of the screen[^]. It shows that I had at least 3 options of older kernel versions & I had hoped that running one of those would fix my problem, but none of them did. Each time I would only get one screen at the 1024x768 size. I couldn't get around it at all and that's why I finally bit the bullet & did a complete reinstall. Now I'm afraid the kernel update is going to get pushed on me again and I'm wondering what I should do. Any suggestions you have I will take.
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That's the thing with Linux in my experience...it works great...until it doesn't. Have you tried re-applying that update that screwed everything in the first place?
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dandy72 wrote:
That's the thing with Linux in my experience...it works great...until it doesn't.
I agree. I do understand that it is kind of a hobbyist's OS. But Ubuntu should be a step better than this really. I saw 3 other kernel versions in GRUB and tried each one of those but none of them would work either. I really had no idea what I was doing so I could've done something wrong but I just couldn't get it back.
I would not call it a hobbyist's OS... It is extremely good at development - I do it on a very serious level all the time... The 'problem' is that it is way to versatile and de-centralized for it's own good... So it is very easy to miss settings and get it wrong... In other word it is definitely not 'out-of-the-box' OS... not even Ubuntu...
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." ― Albert Einstein
"It never ceases to amaze me that a spacecraft launched in 1977 can be fixed remotely from Earth." ― Brian Cox
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I would not call it a hobbyist's OS... It is extremely good at development - I do it on a very serious level all the time... The 'problem' is that it is way to versatile and de-centralized for it's own good... So it is very easy to miss settings and get it wrong... In other word it is definitely not 'out-of-the-box' OS... not even Ubuntu...
"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." ― Albert Einstein
I agree with you. I think it is far better than the Windows side (and I've been a Windows user since Win3.0). it may have sounded like a hobbyist's OS may have sounded like a derogatory term but it wasn't meant that way. I meant that the user has to expect to work on configuration more than other OSes --- but maybe with the recent Windows updates reverting settings etc. it probably isn't any more of a consumer product. :)
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Check out this snapshot of my GRUB choices -- I took a picture of the screen[^]. It shows that I had at least 3 options of older kernel versions & I had hoped that running one of those would fix my problem, but none of them did. Each time I would only get one screen at the 1024x768 size. I couldn't get around it at all and that's why I finally bit the bullet & did a complete reinstall. Now I'm afraid the kernel update is going to get pushed on me again and I'm wondering what I should do. Any suggestions you have I will take.
I've never needed to back out a Ubuntu update, so I'm not sure of the exact procedure. It probably depends on how you get the updates pushed to you. (I use Canonical's Livepatch.) The magic word for searching is "blacklist", so something like "blacklist ubuntu module" or "blacklist ubuntu update" should drag the usual suspects out of the ether. I know you can block things as late as actually loading the kernel, but that potentially leaves a hole in functionality. I've seen that most often used on 3rd party video drivers (why are we not surprised?) Sorry I can't give you a slick answer. Cheers, Peter
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
