Pain in the Gutsy

I hadn't booted my Ubuntu Gutsy partition in a week or two, and I want to put Wine and Internet Explorer on the box (Ilene needs it to access something for the class she teaches at CSUN that didn't used to require IE but sadly and stupidly does now).

So I figured I'd do the software updates I'd missed in the intervening time first. Update Manager said there were 73 updates.

And the box kept on hanging. Even ctrl-alt-delete wouldn't bring it out. The disk was accessing constantly. I did a few hard reboots. I tried apt at a terminal. It was hanging on a package called capplets-data. Yes, even in a terminal, the box hung and needed a hard boot. Not very Linux-like.

Eventually I got the message, both in apt and the Update Manager to run:

# dpkg --configure -a

I started to remove capplets-data (it was slated to be upgraded), but apt told me that doing that would also result in about half of GNOME also being removed. So I aborted the process.

I reinstalled capplets-data with apt, then ran apt-get update (again) and apt-get upgrade.

Things were going OK for awhile, but dring the replacement of Evolution, it's hanging again. What's the deal? I also did an update in Debian Etch today, and it went as smoothly as always.

Now the disk light is basically pegged, and the desktop is unresponsive.

Not a ringing endorsement for Ubuntu Gutsy. I barely use the system for a few weeks, and then I can't do a software update without the box dying a dozen times?

I did check the Ubuntu Forums but came up with nothing conclusive.

I know that hard booting in the middle of an apt update is not conducive to a well-running box.

I tried to ctrl-alt-F1 to a console, but for some reason the type is HUGE, and I can barely see a thing. So I switched to "failsafe terminal" and am running everything again:

$ sudo dpkg --configure -a

$ sudo apt-get update

$ sudo apt-get upgrade

At least in the "failsafe terminal" things don't appear to be hanging. And did I mention that ctrl-alt-F1 in Debian gives me a normal, usable console if X is freaking out? It's either the dark side of apt, or Ubuntu. I'll see how the box looks with X when the upgrade is done.

Upgrades shouldn't break the box. That's Rule No. 1.

This is a huge pain in the ass. Did I mention that? Probably did.

Update: The thing's still f'ing up.