Update/upgrade removes hundreds of packages?

[ajgreeny]

Perhaps stupidly I have been using commands
sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade
on my VMs of Xubuntu Noble most of the time since I started testing this new LTS.

All had been OK until today when the upgrade removed a huge number of packages including several installed manually by me, eg, vlc and audacious plus a huge number of libaudio and python packages making the whole OS unusable and all attempts to add back the packages I wanted that were now gone were impossible due to dependency or broken packages which I could not find or repair.

Let this be a warning perhaps not to use the full-upgrade command lightly or you may end with a completely broken system.
Luckily this was just a VM in KVM/QEMU so was of no real consequence to me and very quickly replaced.

However, I thought it worth mentioning and warning users to take care!

[jbicha]

Yes, Ubuntu 24.04 LTS is in the middle of the largest library transition Ubuntu has ever experienced. There is often temporary uninstallability with large transitions. This time is worse and then things got a bit stuck. Hopefully it can be unstuck tomorrow but it is also a holiday weekend for many people.

See also

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ub...ch/042954.html

[ajgreeny]

Thank you for that information; it sounds as ifvi probably will not be the only one who has suffered!

As I say, this was just a testbed virtual install, which is how I test new LTS versions so it was not an important system to me and is already replaced.
I will now just use the upgrade command rather than full-upgrade, just in case.

[fthx]

So I succeeded with Synaptic to update all this mess.
Step by step, carefully. Only accept *t64 switches.
And finally (................................................. ) I got them all.

I do not notice sever issues but:
- Plymouth encrypted disk pwd prompt is HUGE
- GS asks me for unlocking my keyring (so classical!)
- I get this odd icon in GS native dash for app grid:


(well for whatever reason the icon does not display here, but that's b/w Ubuntu circle icon)

[ajgreeny]

I have decided to leave this alone at the moment!
The one hard-metal install of Xubuntu I have which I installed a long time ago was messed up in those upgrades yesterday and I can't get back I need so I'm not going to keep trying just yet.
Even the Libreoffice applications, eg Writer and Calc fail to open and don't even show separately in the Whisker menu at the moment; I tried reinstalling all the Libreoffice packages but still no good.
I will now wait until after Easter and then try again with a new ISO next week in the hope that all will be better.

PS:
@ fthx
what do you mean by "Only accept *t64 switches."

[Doug S]

I got caught up in this update mess yesterday. I was initially excited when I got an email from a bug report that kernel 6.8.0-20-generic had been released. My 24.04 desktop VM now has no network and the workarounds seem to require a network. I am a server person, and only use the desktop do do work on ubuntu-docs for publishing on help.ubuntu.com. My 24.04 Ubuntu server seems to have survived the update. The 6.8.0-20-generic kernel didn't show up until today (I'll start another thread about that).

EDIT: after a workaround post to the network-manager gets deleted bug report, I was able to get the network working again on my 24.04 desktop VM. Tons more updates, but still 4 packages being held back, due to dependency issues with non-existent packages. I'll just wait before trying again.

[jbicha]

@fthx Could you report those bugs?

Yes, most of the transitions are done now. But there are still a few uninstallable packages.

[Smask]

Yes, most of the transitions are done now. But there are still a few uninstallable packages.

Massaged Synaptic to update all but gnome-remote-desktop and yaru-theme-gnome-shell and then rebooted.

Success!!!

First full reboot since Mar 4, when I couldn't boot further than graphics mode and mouse pointer worked for about 4-5 seconds (failed to start the greeter?) and nothing more, no ability to switch to virtual terminals or so. The only way to access the computer was by by booting via the recovery mode.

[jbicha]

Yes, gnome-shell & mutter need to migrate to clear up those mentioned uninstallable packages.

[1fallen]

On my end all is good:

Summary                                                                                 
=========================================================================================
 Upgrade      126 Packages                                                               
 Kept Back   1020 Packages                                                               
 Auto-Remove    9 Packages                                                               
                                                                                         
 Total download size  134.5 MB   
 Disk space to free    24.5 MB

jbicha look away quick, your not going to want to see this.....LOL 5532 pkgs from proposed https://paste.ubuntu.com/p/BjTbY8RqST/