initramfs-tools hangs on modprobe --show-depends thermal

[Mike Coleman]

Binary package hint: evms

On a laptop, an upgrade from a vanilla LTS installation to 6.10 (via update-manager -c) hangs, apparently during upgrade/install of evms. Below are some relevant lines from ps. I don't believe I've done anything unusual on this box that would affect the kernel/etc, aside from installing the updates that are suggested via that little asterisk icon.

I "solved" this problem by killing the thermal process. The update proceeded, then hung again during the install/upgrade of powernowd and another package. I think these are probably caused by the first failure with evms/thermal.

My laptop is a Pavilion N5240, which is fairly old (circa 1999?), if that matters.

I'll have to submit this before the upgrade finishes, as I'm on the box being upgraded, so I'm not sure how this'll turn out.

0 0 24161 10667 18 0 1660 488 wait S+ pts/3 0:00 /bin/sh /var/lib/dpkg/info/evms.postinst configure 2.5.4-5ubuntu6
0 0 24166 24161 22 0 1660 500 wait S+ pts/3 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/sbin/update-initramfs -u
0 0 24169 24166 15 0 1656 540 wait S+ pts/3 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/sbin/mkinitramfs -o /boot/initrd.img-2.6.15-28-386 2.6.15-28-386
0 0 25989 24169 21 0 1656 508 pipe_w S+ pts/3 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/thermal
1 0 25997 25989 21 0 1656 208 wait S+ pts/3 0:00 /bin/sh /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/thermal
0 0 25998 25997 25 0 1596 568 fcntl_ S+ pts/3 0:00 modprobe --set-version=2.6.15-28-386 --show-depends thermal
0 0 25999 25997 21 0 3148 876 pipe_w S+ pts/3 0:00 awk /^insmod/ { print $2 }

[Mike Coleman (tutufan)]

After completing this upgrade, I don't see any obvious fallout. Nonetheless, this problem would completely stymie a novice user, I think.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

(I don't receive this symptom on a dist-upgrade from 6.06.2 to 8.04.1.)