10.04 LTS upgrade problem on Acer netbook

Despite problems upgrading my workstation (different thread), I decided to go ahead and try to upgrade my netbook.

I did the on-line upgrade. No errors were reported, that I could see, so I suppose that brings to mind one question: what log file should I be looking at to search for upgrade problems?

I initially tried to do the upgrade via upgrade manager, but It kept failing, telling me it couldn't get exclusive use (ie. there was another instance of synaptic running - there wasn't. I tried rebooting and doing it again but got the same result.

I noted that there were outstanding updates to 9.04. I didn't think that would matter, but I decided to try to complete the updates before the upgrade. That failed, telling me that there were broken packages that needed to be fixed first. I closed Update Manager and used Synaptic to repair packages. That went *very* quickly - so much so that I wondered if it had done anything at all.

After that, I tried installing 9.04 updates again using Synaptic and was still told that packages needed to be repaired.

I then went to a command line and used apt-get check then apt-get upgrade.

That appeared to go OK. I don't know what log file to check for errors to an upgrade but the end result is that after the upgrade, rebooting gets me to a command prompt, not the GUI login screen.

Once logged in, typing startx gets me to a GUI but without the use of the synaptic touchpad. I've tried a USB mouse instead, but after that I don't even get a desktop (with or without the USB mouse) so I've gone from bad to worse.

The system does respond to the power button, so I can shut it down properly (as opposed to having to hold the power button down for 4 seconds)

I cannot start a second shell. I can't quite recall if it's CTRL-F3/F4/F6 or ALT-F3/F4/F5 or CTRL-ALT- or ALT-SHIFT- or whatever.
I've tried various combinations and can't start another terminal with which to reboot the computer.

Incidentally, while trying to do this I've discovered that my PC that was in the process of upgrading to 10.04 but got stuck (subject of another question) also can no longer start another terminal session via the keyboard. It will through the GUI but this machine has never been restarted since the failed upgrade. I'm afraid to re-boot it at this point, but I digress.

Several minutes after typing startx, it times-out and I get a command prompt back with the following screen:

No protocol specified
..
No protocol specified
..
.
.
.
No Protocol specified
..
giving up.
xinit: Resource temporarily unavailable (erno 11): unable to connect to X server

waiting for X servr to shut down ddxSigGiveUp: Closing log

xinit: Server error.
xauth: /home/bob/.Xauthority not writable, changes will be ignored.

The permissions on .Xauthority are 600 root:root

I'm not sure if this is correct, given that it's in my home folder. Curiously, my workstation doesn't have a .Xauthority file in my home folder for comparison.

I tried typing:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

but was not given any configuration options. It just went back to the command prompt. Typing startx does the same thing again.

Next, I tried sudo shutdown now

This got me to the menu where I could try a Xserver in safe mode, to which I get the following curious message about Ubuntu running in low-graphics mode with the following errors in the dialog box:

Failed to load module "i810" (module does not exist. 0)
Failed to initialize GLX-extension (Compatible NVIDIA X driver not found)
config/ha;l: couldn't initialize context: unknown error (null)

I have no mouse control, so I can't click through this dialog box, nor does it respond to enter or space, nor to the power button. I have to force a shutdown.

Now, the second error message is interesting. The hard disk in the netbook comes *originally* from an Ubuntu laptop with an nVidia graphics controller. When the laptop died, the drive was moved to this Acer netbook with an Intel graphics controller and the nVidia driver was removed and all was well. I"m surprised that it seems to think it's using nVidia again. I wonder where it's getting it from...

After rebooting, I tried once again to access the menu (accessed via sudu shutdown now - is there another way?) but this time I tried the repair broken packages option. As mentioned earlier, I had tried the repair broken packages option via Synaptic and
apt-get check both of which went very quickly and left me wondering if anything had been done. This time (post-upgrade), it's taking over an hour do repair all the packages. I'll see what happens when it's done.