[Wolves] Fwd: Ubuntu 14.04 Nvidia upgrade woes

[Adam Sweet]

On 08/07/14 21:43, Andy Wootton wrote:
> Try again

I missed your original thread while I was on holiday, I'm just catching 
up. As always, no replies means nobody has an answer for you, rather 
than everyone is ignoring you.

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: 	Ubuntu 14.04 Nvidia upgrade woes
> Date: 	Fri, 04 Jul 2014 17:25:13 +0100
> From: 	Andy Wootton <andy.wootton at bcs.org.uk>
> To: 	Wolverhampton Linux User Group <wolves at mailman.lug.org.uk>
>
>
>
> My test upgrade to 14.04 on my Eee PC went without any serious issues,
> so I decided to press ahead with a Revo 3600 that I use regularly as my
> 'quick web browse' box. BUT it has an Nvidia card. The last 2 Ubuntu
> updates have unhelpfully ignored my preference for Nvidia's proprietary
> binary drivers that 'just work' by installing the Nvidia drivers that
> "don't". I worked this out last time but this time something has gone
> horribly wrong. I tried to install the drivers from the command line but
> when I tried to reboot, I get only a desktop on which I can create
> folders or text files to my hearts content - but nothing else. I can
> only get a command line with <CTRL>/<ALT>/<F1> back to the console.

I've had this happen before, I can't find the exact solution I used, but 
I think it involved removing a 'dot' file from my home directory. It 
might have been .xsession-errors or .Xauthority.

> I seem to have a half-installed nvidia-331 that I can't remove. I get
> "stop: Unknown instance:
> userdel: existing lock file /etc/subuid.lock without a PID
> userdel: cannot lock /etc/subuid: try again later." from aptget remove
> and I can't install because it already 'is'.
>
> then it says the post-removal script returns error exit status 16, which
> I take to be due to the lock and dpkg returns 1.
> I've tried every apt* fix or purge command I know but I don't know much.
>
> Does anyone know an appropriate spell for such an occasion?

That's a whole different ball game to what I was talking about above. 
The fact that you get a GUI of any kind should mean that the driver is 
working, but having a half installed driver package installed is a bit 
of a bummer.

If it were my machine, I'd think about booting into single user mode so 
you can login on the CLI without the GUI starting (I think there's an 
option to do so at the bootloader menu if you get  one, or find out how 
to get one if you don't), check whether /etc/subuid.lock exists and 
remove it if it does as it's almost certainly left dangling, then run an 
apt-get update and an apt-get dist-upgrade to see if you can finish the 
installation off.

I say this without any kind of warranty of course. Googling suggests 
that subiud.lock is created by useradd to prevent multiple useradd 
instances running at the same time. I can't believe that this should be 
happening so removing it should be fine in single user mode while you're 
not running anything. This may help explain:

http://askubuntu.com/questions/459080/useradd-cannot-lock-etc-subuid-try-again-later

sudo lsof /etc/subuid

should tell what is using the file. If nothing, then you can remove it 
then run an update and dist-upgrade.

Other options include just reinstalling the machine and retaining your 
/home partition if you have one, or otherwise, using rsync to copy your 
/home/woo(?) directory off somewhere, reinstalling from scratch and 
rsyncing the data back afterwards. I do that every time I get a new 
machine, so my desktop setup, files and app settings follow me from 
machine to machine.

Regards,

Adam Sweet

-- 

http://blog.adamsweet.org/