The Upgrade to Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04
Saturday, April 28, 2007
A few days late, yes, but today I upgrade my Ubuntu Edgy Eft 6.10 installation to the brand new Feisty Fawn release, 7.04. Instead of doing a complete reinstall with a fresh CD, I decided test out the update manager in seeing how it could handle upgrading my current installation to 7.04. This way, I kept all my settings and data, and also saved me quite a bit of time.
I started up the update manager (System -> Administration -> Update Manager), and there was already a notice waiting for me telling me that a new release was ready for installation. So, I went ahead and clicked "upgrade". The update manager started to prepare the update:
After analyzing my system and package installations, the update manager prompted me with a list of packages that would be removed, newly installed, or updated. Needless to say, there were quite a few. I had to wince, seeing Beryl at the top of the list to be removed was not my idea of an ideal update. But, decided that I could always re-install it later, so on I went.
Next came the lengthy process of actually downloading all the updates. This took about 30 minutes on my cable connection, average speed of 600 kB/s
Downloading went without a hitch, so on to the install! Installing the new software and updating the old took about another half an hour on my Athlon 64 3700+ system. Throughout this processes, CPU usage was rather high, so I couldn't do much else except watch the progress bar steady get longer and longer.. by all means, a very fun task.
The one notice I got while actually installing and updating was a dialog asking me if the the /etc/services configuration file could be replaced. Since I hadn't made any changes to it, I gave it the go-ahead, and the install continued.
When the installing was finished, the system was again checked for obsolete packages. 27 packages were found which could be removed, none of which I needed, so I again gave the OK to remove.
After all this was done, I was told to restart my system.
And now, the fun began... Upon reboot, I was greeted by a nice X error, saying that the X server was not configured correctly. Wonderful... I had had these problems before, and they were a mess to get out of. I narrowed the problem down to the nvidia driver not working any more, for some reason, after the upgrade. So, I went ahead and uninstalled nvidia-glx, and downloaded the latest nVidia Linux drivers from the nVidia website (through Windows). Armed with these new drivers, I got myself to a terminal and attempted to install the drivers. Of course... the kernel source files were not installed (which are necessary for the installation of the driver), and without knowing the specific package name, apt-get'ing them was not an option. So, with all these setbacks, I went into the xorg.conf file to see what I could change manually. Basically, all I did was change the Driver identifier under the "Device" section back to the standard "nv". That did the trick, and upon restarting X, I once again found myself in my familiar Ubuntu environment.
The resolution on my 20.1" display was not set correctly, so I naturally had to reinstall the nVidia drivers. Doing so gave me a nice look into the new "Restricted Drivers Manager."
Before actually being able to use the manager, I had to install the Linux restricted modules package for my kernel. This package includes the following proprietary drivers:
- madwifi (Atheros)
- fglrx (ATI)
- nvidia
- fcdsl, fcdsl2, fcdslsl, fcdslslusb, fcdslusb, fcdslusb2, fcdslusba,
fcpci, fcusb, fxusb (AVM ISDN)
- ltmodem (Winmodem)
After installing this package through Synaptic (just search for "restricted modules" and chose the package that matches your kernel, find out your kernel by typing "uname -r " at the terminal).
Once in the manager, all I had to do was check the box next to "NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver" and Synaptic went about installing the the nvidia-glx package and dependencies. Could have done that myself... but its nice to know that Ubuntu is still making things even simpler for new users.
A reboot later, the nVidia drivers were installed on my system, and ready to go. All that was left to do was run the NVIDIA X Server Settings Manager, and set my screen resolution just right. No problems there.
Tomorrow I will post a more complete review of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04, and take a look at "What's Hot" and "What's Not". Stay tuned.
I started up the update manager (System -> Administration -> Update Manager), and there was already a notice waiting for me telling me that a new release was ready for installation. So, I went ahead and clicked "upgrade". The update manager started to prepare the update:
After analyzing my system and package installations, the update manager prompted me with a list of packages that would be removed, newly installed, or updated. Needless to say, there were quite a few. I had to wince, seeing Beryl at the top of the list to be removed was not my idea of an ideal update. But, decided that I could always re-install it later, so on I went.
Next came the lengthy process of actually downloading all the updates. This took about 30 minutes on my cable connection, average speed of 600 kB/s
Downloading went without a hitch, so on to the install! Installing the new software and updating the old took about another half an hour on my Athlon 64 3700+ system. Throughout this processes, CPU usage was rather high, so I couldn't do much else except watch the progress bar steady get longer and longer.. by all means, a very fun task.
The one notice I got while actually installing and updating was a dialog asking me if the the /etc/services configuration file could be replaced. Since I hadn't made any changes to it, I gave it the go-ahead, and the install continued.
When the installing was finished, the system was again checked for obsolete packages. 27 packages were found which could be removed, none of which I needed, so I again gave the OK to remove.
After all this was done, I was told to restart my system.
And now, the fun began... Upon reboot, I was greeted by a nice X error, saying that the X server was not configured correctly. Wonderful... I had had these problems before, and they were a mess to get out of. I narrowed the problem down to the nvidia driver not working any more, for some reason, after the upgrade. So, I went ahead and uninstalled nvidia-glx, and downloaded the latest nVidia Linux drivers from the nVidia website (through Windows). Armed with these new drivers, I got myself to a terminal and attempted to install the drivers. Of course... the kernel source files were not installed (which are necessary for the installation of the driver), and without knowing the specific package name, apt-get'ing them was not an option. So, with all these setbacks, I went into the xorg.conf file to see what I could change manually. Basically, all I did was change the Driver identifier under the "Device" section back to the standard "nv". That did the trick, and upon restarting X, I once again found myself in my familiar Ubuntu environment.
The resolution on my 20.1" display was not set correctly, so I naturally had to reinstall the nVidia drivers. Doing so gave me a nice look into the new "Restricted Drivers Manager."
Before actually being able to use the manager, I had to install the Linux restricted modules package for my kernel. This package includes the following proprietary drivers:
- madwifi (Atheros)
- fglrx (ATI)
- nvidia
- fcdsl, fcdsl2, fcdslsl, fcdslslusb, fcdslusb, fcdslusb2, fcdslusba,
fcpci, fcusb, fxusb (AVM ISDN)
- ltmodem (Winmodem)
After installing this package through Synaptic (just search for "restricted modules" and chose the package that matches your kernel, find out your kernel by typing "uname -r " at the terminal).
Once in the manager, all I had to do was check the box next to "NVIDIA accelerated graphics driver" and Synaptic went about installing the the nvidia-glx package and dependencies. Could have done that myself... but its nice to know that Ubuntu is still making things even simpler for new users.
A reboot later, the nVidia drivers were installed on my system, and ready to go. All that was left to do was run the NVIDIA X Server Settings Manager, and set my screen resolution just right. No problems there.
Tomorrow I will post a more complete review of Ubuntu Feisty Fawn 7.04, and take a look at "What's Hot" and "What's Not". Stay tuned.
2
Comments:
"and without knowing the specific package name, apt-get'ing them was not an option."
apt-get install kernel-source-`uname -r`
apt-get install kernel-source-`uname -r`
Wow! How could I forget that!
Thanks! I knew there was some way of doing it... it just slipped my mind :D
Thanks! I knew there was some way of doing it... it just slipped my mind :D
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