[Bug 2018125] Re: do-release-upgrade fails due to full zfs partition

[Chelmite]

Yes, Brian. I'm still not up to 100% after the failed upgrade to 23.04.
I don't have printing, a clipboard manager, and several other things
that used to work, plus all the external ppas.

I did get rid of zfs, because being able to work is more important than
being able to have a redundant file system.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2018125

Title:
  do-release-upgrade fails due to full zfs partition

Status in linux package in Ubuntu:
  Confirmed
Status in ubuntu-release-upgrader package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I used do-release-upgrade to upgrade from 22.10 x86-64 to 23.10.
  Towards the end of the upgrade, it rebooted, but stuck me in the recovery console.
  I enabled networking and opened a root shell.
  1. Networking was not working. I fiddled with this for days, and could not get networking working. I tried starting NetworkManager, playing with rfkill, and a few other things, but, ultimately, could not get networking working.
  2. The problem that seemed to kill the upgrade was the zfs boot partition being too full for the new image, even though the new image was present. After a few days I found a way to remove old snapshots and created lots of free space on /boot. Linux still doesn't boot.

  Ultimately, if FOSS is supposed to be a good thing, and attract non-
  sysadmins, it should be easy to install/upgrade.

  1. do-release-upgrade should be able to deal with full filesystems,
  whether they're zfs or ext4 or the other front-running file systems,
  giving the user the tools to remove snapshots and/or files to make the
  new upgrade/release work as flawlessly as it can. I should be able to
  convert a zfs partition to ext4, (or vice versa) and get on with my
  real work.

  2. When the user is dumped into the recovery console, give him more
  tools to work with. There should be, at the very least, a way to get
  the network working when you press "enable networking" (not by having
  to download and figure out how to use network-tools, ifconfig, rfkill,
  dhclient, etc.), and deal with and fix ZFS issues.

  I know this isn't going to be fixed by the weekend, so I'm considering
  3 "nuclear" options, in decreasing order of desirability: (1) reformat
  the zfs boot partition as ext4, then copy the (saved) contents of
  /boot into the pristine partition. (2) Reinstall 23.04 from the thumb
  drive. I learned, decades ago, to keep my user partition on a separate
  drive, so it should be safe. What I'll lose is my network and wifi
  settings and printer setups. There are, undoubtedly other things that
  will have to be recovered, but those are the most important. (3) Pay
  through the nose for an Apple. I'd have to learn a new UI and transfer
  my files somehow, and bow down to my kids who have been pushing for me
  to get off this old Linux thing. "You'll have to pry my cold dead
  fingers off my Linux computers..."

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