Re: [tlug] Kubuntu 8.04->8.10 Upgrade: Two for Two

[CL <az.4tlug@example.com>]

Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
> CL writes:
>  > Regular readers may recall my adventures trying to upgrade a basic 
>  > Kubuntu v.8.04 (Horny Hamster) installation on my ThinkPad to v.8.10 
>  > (Irritating Idiot).  
>
> Heh.  I'm discovering a drop of sympathy for our other K?Ubuntu victim.

Some times I have to ask myself if it's interesting when everything just 
works or does it take continual crises to keep it interesting.  Back in 
the days when we kept out programs on 80-column cards and pushed trays 
of them around on carts seem just so ... boring and exacting ... by 
comparison with the current "push the button and see what fires break 
out" mentality.

Oh for the days when you could squeeze the computing power of an Intel 
8086 into a three story ferroconcrete building and could get a good 
reputation for being able to change the set of eight matched four foot 
high valves (vacuum tubes) in under three hours ... or hot swapping the 
two eight-foot tubes of a Univac 10 without powering down ... (not)

> Hm.  Check the mtab (or just output of 'mount').  ISTR something about
> "unionfs" from David Bernat's posts.  

It turns out that the inability to see audio disks is an undocumented 
feature in the KDE4 versions of Amarok and Dolphin.  The KDE3 version of 
Amarok (v.1.4.10) -- which is part of the installed base package in 8.10 
-- will play audio CDs if you select "Play Audio CD" in the "Engage" 
menu, and it will allow you to eject with the button on the front of the 
player.  Any menu stuff can be handled once the playlist is showing in 
Amarok, but not before.

Apparently, the beta KDE4 version (V.2-something) kills your mouse and 
locks your CD in until you reboot and can liberate it from the tray 
during the boot process.  It would appear that the developers knew of 
this when they let the beta out into public but said nothing and have no 
published plan in the schedule to repair the problem.  Silly me, I would 
have thought that was one of the basic things you fix before you send it 
out for testing ... but, they suggest that you install the KDE4 version 
of Kaffein and play your CDs _that_ way if you really want music.  Am I 
the only one wondering how Amarok will ever get tested if everyone keeps 
playing their CDs with Kaffein?

> I wonder if that could be related to the phenomenon you describe.
> OTOH, if you do
>
>     mount -t ext3 /dev/sda1 /mnt
>
> that should *not* be a unionfs, and it *should* work (in the sense of
> actually writing to the HDD).  Are you telling me that it didn't?

Well, as seen above, the problem was not what I thought it was but 
another problem that looked the same.  However, I _am_ telling you that 
the exact command you suggest was tried and did not save to HDD.

> And of course there was the WinNT 3.2beta to 3.2final upgrade that
> wiped my hard drive clean....

You newbie!  I'll bet you never went through the MS-DOS 3.0 -> 3.1 -> 
3.3 -> 3.6 upgrade fiasco or worked in an office using DR-DOS alongside 
boxes running MS-DOS and trying to exchange output between machines in 
the midst of the MS fake error message campaigns ...

--
CL