Adding 64-bit libs for Skype rendered Lenovo G50 laptop unbootable
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
apt (Ubuntu) |
New
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
I used a standard Lubuntu 18.04 LTS i386-destkop live CD to install on a Lenovo G50 laptop, the install went well and booted into the new system nicely, but then I remembered this user might want Skype, so I downloaded the Skype deb and found it was amd64-only. The laptop was 64-bit capable but I had only brought an i386 CD.
So I did a "dpkg --add-architecture amd64" and an "apt-get update" and "apt-get install linux-image-
Worse, I couldn't even boot off the CD again, because the Lenovo G50 folks put the CD-booting code on the hard disk. If you elect to replace the existing Windows 8 system with Linux (wiping the hard disk and installing afresh), as I had, the laptop ends up not being able to give you the option to boot a CD-ROM or USB stick, because the menu to do that lived on the hard disk and was wiped by the Linux install. I tried going into GRUB's command mode (hold Shift on boot and then press C in GRUB), but GRUB's "ls" could not see the CD-ROM drive.
Thankfully GRUB could still see USB media, so I took the laptop home and used UNetbootin to put a 64-bit Lubuntu image onto a memory card and put in the standard Grub2 commands "insmod chain", "set root=(hd1)", "chainloader +1" and "boot", then copied off the home directory and made a clean reinstall on amd64. So all is well. But I thought a report of what happened might still be useful.
Perhaps this bug is Lubuntu-related (as the main Ubuntu is no longer shipping a 32-bit installer with 18.04, but Lubuntu is). I first tried to report at https:/