Upgrading From Ubuntu 8.04 to 9.04

I tend to bounce from one LTS version to another. It’s not that I don’t like the *.1 versions, but upgrading takes time. Unless there is a substantial performance or software package difference, I don’t upgrade. So when I decided to upgrade to 9.04 from 8.04, there was no longer an upgrade to 8.10 button on my machine. I’m now writing this in Ubuntu 9.04 which runs beautifully on my old 8.04 box. For a variety of reasons, I did not do a fresh install.

My Box:

• Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz
• 1253 MiB Memory (upgraded last year)
• 2368 MiB Swap Memory
• Intel Corporation 82845G/GL [Brookdale-G]/GE Chipset Integrated Graphics Device

In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t exactly the latest/greatest anything. In computer terms, I have a dinosaur. One other thing that you may have noticed (or may not, depending entirely on whether or not you ran into this issue yourself), my graphics card was blacklisted by Compiz. Compiz is normally used for compositing. It’s what allows you to run things like Cairo-Dock, Awn, and Gnome-DO Docky. Since Gnome-DO Docky is a “prize it out of my cold dead fingers” app, I must have compositing. I’ll talk about using Metacity compositing instead at the end of the post. There are ways to hack the Compiz blacklist, but a hack is a hack and there are valid performance reasons for not running Compiz on blacklisted chipsets.

Preparing for the Upgrade

You will need the following:

• Ubuntu-8.10-alternate-***.iso (Here’s a link to a torrent site that still has the iso available.)
• Ubuntu-9.04-alternate-***.iso (Ubuntu Site)

Note: Replace *** with i386, amd64, etc. Choose the one that is appropriate for your computer. See the Ubuntu download site for more information.Don’t reach for a CD to burn these images. You don’t need it.

1. Update your current system. System > Administration> Update Manager. Install all available updates.
2. Remove orphaned packages. Open terminal and type: sudo apt-get autoremove. When it asks you if you want to remove x number of packages type Y and press enter.
3. Optional: Install and Run Remastersys to backup your operating system. This basically makes a .iso image that can reinstall your existing installation. I choose to ere on the side of caution, especially because I have known graphics chip issues. I’ve done upgrades like this one several times and never needed this .iso, but that doesn’t mean I might not need it. In my opinion, the peace of mind this gives me is worth the time.
4. Backup your Home Directory (ex: /home/kcknits) and your Remastersys (home/remastersys) directory to a separate hard disk. (If you skip this step, but still ran remastersys, burn the .iso found in /home/remastersys/remastersys tp a disk.) Again this is just a precaution, but shouldn’t you be backing up your home directory regularly regardless? I used Grsync for this backup, which you can find in your Ubuntu repositories. It’s a simple, graphical interface for rsync. I don’t recommend it for frequent backups, but for a one time job, it’s a great little tool.

The First Upgrade

Note: You do have to upgrade to 8.10 before upgrading to 9.04. You don’t necessarily need the 9.04.iso, but it upgrading with the .iso is faster in my experience. (This whole procedure from beginning to end took me about 6 hours to download and install everything. I took the dog outside and played ball while it was running, did a little bit of gardening, and cast-on a sock. I returned to the computer every 30 minutes or so to click OK and left. Admittedly, my hardware was part of the reason why this upgrade was so slow. The Asus EEE 1100H upgraded from 8.10 to 9.04 in about 2.5 hours over a wireless connection with no .iso)

1. Move your .iso images into your home directory. For example, if my username is kcknits, then my home directory is /home/kcknits. (I’m using the home directory because accessing it takes less typing, which reduces your margin of error.) (You can copy and paste, cut and paste, or simply download them here to begin with.)
2. Mount the 8.10 alternate .iso. (Note: You must have the alternate .isos. If the word alternate is not in the .iso file name, you do not have the alternate .iso.)
   1. Go to Places > Home Folder.
   2. Inside your home folder, right click on the ubuntu-8.10-alternate-***.iso. Go to rename. Hit ctrl + a. (Select all.) This selects the entire file title inside the rename box. Now hit ctrl + c (copies the entire file name) and click outside the rename box to close it. (You aren’t really renaming the file. You’re just cheating a little bit.)
   3. Open Terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal). Type sudo mount -o loop ~/(Do Edit > Paste or ctrl + shift + v to insert the .iso name here) /media/cdrom0 . This should look something like sudo mount -o loop ~/ubuntu-8.10-alternate-i386.iso /media/cdrom0. You should now be able to go to your home folder or your desktop and see that a cd is mounted.
3. Run the update from the .iso. On some machines the update runs automatically. It didn’t on mine. I went back to Terminal and typed: gksu “sh /cdrom/cdromupgrade”. You can also run this command by typing Alt + F2 and typing the command above into the box that appears.
4. Answer the questions from the upgrade installer. Once the upgrade completes, restart your computer.
5. Update your 8.10 system. System > Administration> Update Manager. Install all available updates.
6. Remove orphaned packages. Open terminal and type: sudo apt-get autoremove. When it asks you if you want to remove x number of packages type Y and press enter.

The Second Upgrade

The Update Manager does have an upgrade to 9.04 button. You may use it if you wish. You may also notice a new program on your computer under System > Administration > Computer Janitor. Under NO circumstances should you run this program. It is a great concept, but it hasn’t been fully realized yet and personal experience (in a virtual computer setup solely for this experiment) says it breaks things. The Ubuntu forums also document others experiences with this program. I haven’t read about a good one yet. I’m not saying that they aren’t out there just that I haven’t heard of any good experiences with it. As I indicated earlier, I ere on the side of caution, which is why I’m saying don’t use this program at this time.

Option 1: Using the Upgrade Manager

1. Click the Upgrade button at the top beside the text “New Distribution Release…” and follow the instructions.
2. Update your 9.04 system. System > Administration> Update Manager. Install all available updates.
3. Remove orphaned packages. Open terminal and type: sudo apt-get autoremove. When it asks you if you want to remove x number of packages type Y and press enter.

Option 2: Manual Upgrade

1. Mount the 9.04 alternate .iso. (Note: You must have the alternate .isos. If the word alternate is not in the .iso file name, you do not have the alternate .iso.)
   1. Go to Places > Home Folder.
   2. Inside your home folder, right click on the ubuntu-9.04-alternate-***.iso. Go to rename. Hit ctrl + a. (Select all.) This selects the entire file title inside the rename box. Now hit ctrl + c (copies the entire file name) and click outside the rename box to close it. (You aren’t really renaming the file. You’re just cheating a little bit.)
   3. Open Terminal (Applications > Accessories > Terminal). Type sudo mount -o loop ~/(Do Edit > Paste or ctrl + shift + v to insert the .iso name here) /media/cdrom0 . This should look something like sudo mount -o loop ~/ubuntu-9.04-alternate-i386.iso /media/cdrom0. You should now be able to go to your home folder or your desktop and see that a cd is mounted.
2. Run the update from the .iso. On some machines the update runs automatically. It didn’t on mine. I went back to Terminal and typed: gksu “sh /cdrom/cdromupgrade”. You can also run this command by typing Alt + F2 and typing the command above into the box that appears.
3. Answer the questions from the upgrade installer. Once the upgrade completes, restart your computer.
4. Update your 8.10 system. System > Administration> Update Manager. Install all available updates.
5. Remove orphaned packages. Open terminal and type: sudo apt-get autoremove. When it asks you if you want to remove x number of packages type Y and press enter.

Upgrade Aftermath

After the upgrade, you will notice that many of the repositories from the old distribution and some of your specially installed programs, including Amarok and OpenOffice 3.1 have been uninstalled. Fix these first.

1. Go to System > Adminsitration > Software Sources and click the “Third Party Software” tab.
2. Make a list of the unchecked repositories and go to Google (or your favorite search engine) and search for the software or repository name. Delete the old repositories and add the updated ones for your new 9.04 distribution. (This step took me about thirty minutes, but I consider it well worth the effort.) Note: OpenOffice 3.1 now has a repository for Ubuntu Jaunty. For complete instructions on installing and using this repository see this Ubuntu manual post.
3. Reinstall your software.

Note: There were some changes in how Ubuntu handles the Amarok libraries. When you install Amarok, you need to install the kubuntu-restricted-extras package. (This applies to both Ubuntu Gnome and KDE.) This will get you mp3 support. (You should also be using the legal Fluendo mp3 codecs, but that’s just my personal opinion.)

Compiz Blacklisted My Graphics Card

As I mentioned earlier, I am a Gnome-DO Docky addict. I think this program beats all the other docks hands down in terms of functionality. It took me about three days after I first installed it to get used to it and now, there’s no going back. Unfortunately, Docky requires compositing and Compiz, which is what I used to use for compositing, no longer works on my graphics chipset. Fear not! Metacity now has compositing. I do like to change these settings from the commandline, but some of you are probably commandlined out after the upgrade, so I’ll use the interface.

1. Type alt + f2.
2. Inside the box that opens type gconf-editor and hit enter.
3. Inside the Configuration Editor on the far right hand side, there is a list that looks similar to a file tree view. Click apps > metacity > general. Scroll down in the right hand side window to “compositing” and check the box beside it. Close gconf-editor

Your computer screen will probably flash when the compositing turns on. You know have compositing enabled and can use your favorite dock. Note: Many have observed that Metacity compositing is not as flashy as Compiz. I haven’t noticed any difference, but as you can tell from my hardware list, I’m not exactly running the type of box that would have 3-D effects enabled. Even if I did have that sort of a box, I probably wouldn’t use them because I personally find most desktop effects highly distracting. There were some other software related decisions that I made following this upgrade, which I will detail in a future post. Most were for improved functionality, but one wasn’t. I did swap my email client from Evolution to Thunderbird (with the Lightening extension installed). I honestly do not know what happened to Evolution between 8.04 and 9.04, but Evolution on the newly upgraded machine was not stable and none of the usual fixes worked. I do run and enjoy playing with alphas and betas. I expect these programs to not be completely stable and I’m okay with that. However, that attitude does not extend to my code editor, email client, or word processor. Hence, the switch. Well, I hope you found this post useful and that it didn’t make your eyes cross too much.

Resources:

• Ubuntu Manual Upgrade to Open Office 3.1
• Ubuntu 8.10 Torrent
• Ubuntu 9.04 Alternate iso
• Official Ubuntu Upgrade Instructions
• Enable Metacity compositing in Gnome
• Compiz Hardware Blacklist

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