4 ms·

When I clicked yes to upgrading Kubuntu to 16.04, it broke hard, into a state which would be 100% unrecoverable for grandma (and quite likely the support guy sh

When I clicked yes to upgrading Kubuntu to 16.04, it broke hard, into a state which would be 100% unrecoverable for grandma (and quite likely the support guy she would have shipped it too as well).

rocky1138 11y ago
Me, too. But, this happens every time, so I know to drag out the ol' dpkg --configure -a. One thing I've noticed this release is that KDE5's Plasma fails quite often when I'm switching Wifi access points.
- vintermann 11y ago
  It somehow ended up without a working boot image entirely, and that wasn't the only thing that broke (lots of central packages weren't installed, apparently). So I thought it wasn't worth the effort trying to disentangle it, and I just installed regular Ubuntu over it.
pen2l 11y ago
There should be an Ubuntu-distribution called Gubuntu, (Ubuntu for grandmas). No, seriously, there's a serious market for this -- Ubuntu's UI is crap (with the little triangles indicating which windows are open? Give me a break, I'm mid-20s and I have trouble seeing that). We cannot have that for our grandmas, gnome would probably be better. Also, grandmas don't need a lot of bells and whistles... only the absolute bare essentials. Like wordprocessing and and internet browser... the minimalism nature would make support easier for you. Lastly, I guess consider Windows 7. Windows 7 was probably the high point in terms of "oh, it's obvious how I do this..." for grandmas (I think the flat theming in Win10 took that away).
- david-given 11y ago
  ChromeOS. http://www.neverware.com/ http://www.neverware.com/ make a PC installable version. You do end up having to use web based apps for everything, but for basic jobs (with a tethered net connection) that's fine. And it's so nice having something where everything works, everything either obvious or simply not present [ * ], and which has a UI which doesn't try to be different just for the sake of being different. [ * ] Keyboard layout settings notwithstanding. They really need cleaning up.
- Santosh83 11y ago
  Since a few years I've settled upon Xubuntu, because I like the Ubuntu base and the XFCE desktop environment. Personally, I think it hits close to the happy middle ground between lean and minimalistic on the one hand and flashy with everything including the kitchen sink on the other hand. I think MATE (UbuntuMATE) is also virtually equivalent to XFCE (Xubuntu). Something like Xubuntu, UbuntuMATE, Linux Mint or elementaryOS might fit the bill for grandmas (and for me, as I want something that just works, is relatively simple and resource efficient and based on the traditional desktop paradigm).
  - anthk 11y ago
    Not only for grandmas. XFCE with Compton is perfect for any user.
vetinari 11y ago
What did you click on? AFAIK, the update from 14.04 to 16.04 is not yet offered to end-users (including grandmas). It will take 16.04.1 in order for them to be able to update.
- vintermann 11y ago
  Download new version in KDE's update tool. Same as doing apt-get dist-upgrade as far as I know. It was certainly offered to me. In the end I reinstalled regular old Ubuntu, because there are no real alternatives, and it's at least marginally less in need of grandma-hard maintenance. (I still had to go into Grub's hidden boot menu and fiddle with the boot flags to get it to work - Ubuntu's installer doesn't do nomodeset by default, even though many brand new graphics cards will boot you into a black screen without it).
  - vetinari 11y ago
    In Ubuntu, apt-get dist-upgrade does not upgrade to new release. It has just "smart" dependency resolution. I'm using it to upgrade kernels from command line, because normal apt-get upgrade won't upgrade them. If you want to upgrade entire distribution from a command line to a new one, you have to run 'do-release-upgrade'. I was asking what you clicked, because at least in the main/normal/unity version, the upgrade isn't offered to the user. I was wondering why and after a bit of googling, I've found that statement about waiting for 16.04.1 before flipping the switch. About alternatives: if your grandma can live without bleeding edge packages and third-party ppas, I think that Centos is a good alternative. Once installed, it will run for years. There's also Fedora, which looks nicer and more polished, but you have to go through pain of upgrading at least once per year (basically just like non-LTS Ubuntu). GRUB: nomodeset disables KMS, that's why it is not default. Do you have an Nvidia card?
    - vintermann 11y ago
      Well then, I didn't know that about dist-upgrade. But either way, I have used the graphical update tool's "A new version of Ubuntu is available", and it always did a proper upgrade. I assumed the Kubuntu version would do the same (and indeed, it certainly tried). Yup, a GTX 980 Ti. Surely for the installer nomodeset is a sensible default - once the Nvidia drivers are installed it doesn't matter, but it's tricky to get the drivers without a functioning display. I'm not actually looking for something for my grandma, of course. And I can usually recover my system when stuff like this happens, as long as I have a different online connection and a few hours to spare. I just hate doing it.

When I clicked yes to upgrading Kubuntu to 16.04, it broke hard, into a state which would be 100% unrecoverable for grandma (and quite likely the support guy she would have shipped it too as well).

rocky1138 11y ago

Me, too. But, this happens every time, so I know to drag out the ol' dpkg --configure -a. One thing I've noticed this release is that KDE5's Plasma fails quite often when I'm switching Wifi access points.

vintermann 11y ago
It somehow ended up without a working boot image entirely, and that wasn't the only thing that broke (lots of central packages weren't installed, apparently). So I thought it wasn't worth the effort trying to disentangle it, and I just installed regular Ubuntu over it.

pen2l 11y ago

There should be an Ubuntu-distribution called Gubuntu, (Ubuntu for grandmas). No, seriously, there's a serious market for this -- Ubuntu's UI is crap (with the little triangles indicating which windows are open? Give me a break, I'm mid-20s and I have trouble seeing that). We cannot have that for our grandmas, gnome would probably be better. Also, grandmas don't need a lot of bells and whistles... only the absolute bare essentials. Like wordprocessing and and internet browser... the minimalism nature would make support easier for you. Lastly, I guess consider Windows 7. Windows 7 was probably the high point in terms of "oh, it's obvious how I do this..." for grandmas (I think the flat theming in Win10 took that away).

david-given 11y ago
ChromeOS. http://www.neverware.com/ http://www.neverware.com/ make a PC installable version. You do end up having to use web based apps for everything, but for basic jobs (with a tethered net connection) that's fine. And it's so nice having something where everything works, everything either obvious or simply not present [ * ], and which has a UI which doesn't try to be different just for the sake of being different. [ * ] Keyboard layout settings notwithstanding. They really need cleaning up.
Santosh83 11y ago
Since a few years I've settled upon Xubuntu, because I like the Ubuntu base and the XFCE desktop environment. Personally, I think it hits close to the happy middle ground between lean and minimalistic on the one hand and flashy with everything including the kitchen sink on the other hand. I think MATE (UbuntuMATE) is also virtually equivalent to XFCE (Xubuntu). Something like Xubuntu, UbuntuMATE, Linux Mint or elementaryOS might fit the bill for grandmas (and for me, as I want something that just works, is relatively simple and resource efficient and based on the traditional desktop paradigm).
- anthk 11y ago
  Not only for grandmas. XFCE with Compton is perfect for any user.

vetinari 11y ago

What did you click on? AFAIK, the update from 14.04 to 16.04 is not yet offered to end-users (including grandmas). It will take 16.04.1 in order for them to be able to update.

vintermann 11y ago
Download new version in KDE's update tool. Same as doing apt-get dist-upgrade as far as I know. It was certainly offered to me. In the end I reinstalled regular old Ubuntu, because there are no real alternatives, and it's at least marginally less in need of grandma-hard maintenance. (I still had to go into Grub's hidden boot menu and fiddle with the boot flags to get it to work - Ubuntu's installer doesn't do nomodeset by default, even though many brand new graphics cards will boot you into a black screen without it).
- vetinari 11y ago
  In Ubuntu, apt-get dist-upgrade does not upgrade to new release. It has just "smart" dependency resolution. I'm using it to upgrade kernels from command line, because normal apt-get upgrade won't upgrade them. If you want to upgrade entire distribution from a command line to a new one, you have to run 'do-release-upgrade'. I was asking what you clicked, because at least in the main/normal/unity version, the upgrade isn't offered to the user. I was wondering why and after a bit of googling, I've found that statement about waiting for 16.04.1 before flipping the switch. About alternatives: if your grandma can live without bleeding edge packages and third-party ppas, I think that Centos is a good alternative. Once installed, it will run for years. There's also Fedora, which looks nicer and more polished, but you have to go through pain of upgrading at least once per year (basically just like non-LTS Ubuntu). GRUB: nomodeset disables KMS, that's why it is not default. Do you have an Nvidia card?
  - vintermann 11y ago
    Well then, I didn't know that about dist-upgrade. But either way, I have used the graphical update tool's "A new version of Ubuntu is available", and it always did a proper upgrade. I assumed the Kubuntu version would do the same (and indeed, it certainly tried). Yup, a GTX 980 Ti. Surely for the installer nomodeset is a sensible default - once the Nvidia drivers are installed it doesn't matter, but it's tricky to get the drivers without a functioning display. I'm not actually looking for something for my grandma, of course. And I can usually recover my system when stuff like this happens, as long as I have a different online connection and a few hours to spare. I just hate doing it.