Borked installation of latest updates in jaunty, now kernel panic on boot

[daveskis]

Running jaunty, amd64 on ext4
When I decided to install todays updates (using update-manager) it got most of the way through then failed, it said there was no free space in /var/[forgot]/dpkg or something similar (sorry i didn't write down the exact output)

I tried using aptitude which said i needed to run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to fix the problem, which i did, this didn't fix the problem.

Update manager then had its red icon in the notification area, i clicked on this, update-manager then had some error when it started so i decided to reboot

Here is the exact output of the screen i get on boot now:
Boot from (hd0,0) ext4 [long hex number]
[ 0.855154] ACPI: Expecting a [reference] package element, found type 0
[ 3.52768] Kernel Panic - not synching: VFS: unable to mount root fs on unknown-block(0,0)

reporting against update manager but i suspect the bug(s?) lie somewhere else

[daveskis (findgriffin)]

I think the problem may be that the 2.6.28-8 kernel didn't install properly, so when grub tried to boot into it it failed.

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

Thanks for your bugreport.

Could you plase attach the logs from /var/log/dist-upgrade/* ? You may have to boot from a external medium (like the ubuntu CD).

Cheers,
 Michael

[Michael Vogt (mvo)]

And /var/log/apt/term.log as well please.

[Luka Renko (lure)]

I have the same problem with 2.6.28-11 kernel after today's update (I do updated at least once per day). Booting 2.6.28-10 kernel works.

I am running Kubuntu and I did upgrade with apt-get, therefore I doubt the problem is in update-manager, but it is probably in lower levels (apt, dpkg, initramfs, kernel...).

Also note, that I do not recall any errors during upgrade (beside python-kde4 python-kde4-dev packages that are kept back).

[Luka Renko (lure)]

Note: I could boot 2.6.28-11 this morning (Mar 20), therefore I suspect the interesting part of the log file starts here:

Log started: 2009-03-20 09:01:20
(Reading database ... 184871 files and directories currently installed.)

[Luka Renko (lure)]

After inspecting the list of installed packages this morning, I see two packages that could have something with this:

- initramfs-tools: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-March/007221.html
  * mkinitramfs: include the modules.order file. LP: #296710.

- kubuntu-default-settings: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-March/007968.html
  * usplash/usplash-theme-kubuntu.c, t_animate_step_{16,32}: Use the correct
    image's width for calculating the number of pulsating steps. Previously,
    this triggered integer, and thus buffer overflows, which caused screen
    corruption and sometimes complete corruption of the VTs. (LP: #345269)

Also note: I have / on LVM and /home on LVM-on-dmcrypt

[Luka Renko (lure)]

This bug is fixed for me after today's kernel update:
https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/jaunty-changes/2009-March/007996.html

It may be fixed with this change:
  * Build-in "Ram block device support" to boot up with initramfs
    - LP: #329098

Note: above bug ID is probably wrong.

daveskis: can you test today's updates and if this fixes it also for you and can we close it?