[Bug 1068657] Re: ubiquity upgrade failed to restore applications without internet access

[Maxime R.]

Some additional context :

Thing is: I'm using Ubuntu since 2007 and almost always used the
alternate install downloaded via bitorrent when doing a release upgrade.
Seems like this time there's no alternate install, only a desktop iso
but seeing that booting it offered me to upgrade, my natural expectation
was that it would work "as usual".

Clearly this should require a warning somewhere because wiping out
system-wide configs, databases and logs can be troublesome even if all
previous packages are correctly restored.

Obviously, not everyone will upgrade this way, but advanced while not
expert users like me could easily fall in the trap. If I had seen the
clear_partitions list http://paste.ubuntu.com/1290581/ I would probably
have avoided it.

On the other side I must recognize the added benefit of a clean system
pushing me to script my usual setup.

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Title:
  ubiquity upgrade failed to restore applications without internet
  access

Status in “ubiquity” package in Ubuntu:
  Incomplete

Bug description:
  I downloaded the desktop iso via bitorrent to upgrade my up-to-date
  12.04.1 setup to 12.10.

  I explained the process here : http://askubuntu.com/q/202694/7567
  Basically, I did the following  :

  - booted on ubuntu-12.10-desktop-amd64.iso 
  - launched the installer (double click on desktop)
  - selected "upgrade existing 12.04 install to 12.10"
  - I did not select "connect to internet" during the install in order to speed up the process, planning to do an apt-get update/upgrade after the reboot.

  Result :

  - I was asked to select my timezone & keyboard layout (those are already defined in the existing install)
  - I was asked to create a new user: I gave my existing username & password (but that started to be puzzled)
  - Install went fine till the end
  - At the end Ubuntu told me having issues to "restore existing apps" and that I may need to reinstall some of them. The non-resizeable 2-lines terminal did not allow me to see what really happened. Sorry not to have collected more details about what seemed a small issue at that time.
  - reboot

  Then things gone wild, at that time I did not know that almost everything that wasn't in /home was overwritten with default values:
  - /etc/default/grub was overwritten & I rebooted directly without asking the 3.6 kernel that I had installed to test some weeks ago
  - no touchpad, usb mouse not recognized, X wasn't using the intel driver
  - apt-get only knows linux-image-3.5.0-ubuntu although kernel 3.2, 3.5.0-ubuntu, 3.5.5 and 3.6 are installed and bootable.
  - Ctrl+alt+T, tried to edit /etc/default/grub, vim is no longer installed. 
  - rebooted on the stock ubuntu kernel with sane options. Mouse & display are okay.

  FWIW:
  - almost every non-default program was wiped out: vim, git, tmux, chrome, chromium, dropbox, postgresql, etc.
  - postgresql roles and databases were wiped out !
  - all logs were wiped out, as stated in the bug informations, there are no logs because it's "probably a fresh install" except it ain't.

  My impression is that all this mess shouldn't have happened in the first place, when I 
  do an upgrade, I do an upgrade,  not a wipe-everything-out-and-maybe-try-to-restore-what-was-there-before.

  The main reason I went this way is that in my experience the normal
  process is awfully slow and has to be completed in one step compared
  to the (normally)  straightforward download-iso-via-bittorrent /
  release-upgrade / reboot / update&upgrade.

  Hope my feedback helps, no critical information was lost and now that
  I started to reinstall what I need to work, it's running fine.

  ProblemType: Bug
  DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
  Package: ubuntu-release-upgrader-core 1:0.190.1
  ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-17.28-generic 3.5.5
  Uname: Linux 3.5.0-17-generic x86_64
  ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu4
  Architecture: amd64
  Date: Fri Oct 19 15:10:39 2012
  InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Release amd64 (20121017.5)
  MarkForUpload: True
  PackageArchitecture: all
  SourcePackage: ubuntu-release-upgrader
  UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

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