Folks,

It probably isn't appropriate for me to jump in here as I am not a
developer or part of the team that squashes the bugs. I am just one of the
people who filed the bug report, but what John Washington wrote struck me.

I am a person who tries to be an advocate for Linux, Ubuntu in particular.
One of the most compelling messages I've had is that older notebooks can be
reborn as capable boxes. When I show someone their old ThinkPad running a
stable, easy-to-use, secure OS with a modern browser, I've won more than a
few converts.

What Mr. Washington said about all those great old ThinkPads that can stand
as persuasive examples of what is possible is so true. The Pentium M issue
is a roadblock.

I don't wish to distract from the process, so I will just say, "Thank you."
The work you folks do is important and is very much appreciated.

Best wishes,

- F. Stephen Costa.


On Tue, Mar 4, 2014 at 6:31 PM, JohnWashington <email address hidden>wrote:

> Re #10 and #11, it gave me a chuckle! :)  But actually there's something
> serious here as well.  Not just that the wiki would seem to be not quite
> right, but also that some well-understood convention is needed, for use
> when one person justifiably assigns a bug to another.
>
> Indeed, even assigning a bug to oneself needs looking at.  A while ago,
> a bug I'm interested in, which had no assignee, a guy assigned to
> himself.  Of course I was pleased, hope of light at the end of the
> tunnel!  A month went by.  And then it was assigned back to nobody.  In
> fact, this guy, who had no track record, had assigned himself on 3 other
> bugs, same story.
>
> So more than a month was wasted, when someone productive could have
> stepped forward.
>
> PS: Great to see this Pentium-M stuff getting some love at last.  I know
> that many devs with screaming fast i7 kit think it's a non-issue, too
> old to worry about, affects a tiny minority.  But I've encountered a
> number of people tempted to dip their toe in the water, try out Linux
> for the first time and run away at the first hint of trouble, due to
> Pentium-M on old Thinkpads.  They're certainly not signing up to
> Launchpad to be counted.  I've even seen where a mag has published a
> book about Ubuntu and put a 64-bit CD on the cover -- the punter had no
> idea why it didn't work, same outcome, disgust and back to the arms of
> Redmond.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1280638).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1160346
>
> Title:
>   do-release-upgrade from Ubuntu 12.04 on Pentium-M fails, breaks system
>   without any warning (This kernel does not support a non-PAE CPU)
>
> Status in Ubuntu Release Upgrader:
>   New
> Status in "linux" package in Ubuntu:
>   Invalid
> Status in "ubuntu-release-upgrader" package in Ubuntu:
>   Triaged
>
> Bug description:
>   Attempting to upgrade from Precise with a non-PAE kernel will result
>   in a failed upgrade. do-release-upgrade should check whether the user
>   is using a non-PAE kernel and refuse to run, rather than upgrading to
>   a broken system with no installed kernel.
>
>   After downloading 1.5GB+ of data and over 1000 new packages, the
>   upgrade will eventually report failure. Looking through the logs there
>   is no kernel installed because of the error "This kernel does not
>   support a non-PAE CPU.":
>
>   Selecting previously unselected package linux-image-3.5.0-26-generic.^M
>   Unpacking linux-image-3.5.0-26-generic (from
> .../linux-image-3.5.0-26-generic_3.5.0-26.42_i386.deb) ...^M
>   This kernel does not support a non-PAE CPU.^M
>   dpkg: error processing
> /var/cache/apt/archives/linux-image-3.5.0-26-generic_3.5.0-26.42_i386.deb
> (--unpack):^M
>    subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1^M
>   No apport report written because MaxReports is reached already
>
>   Related bugs:
>
>   https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/897786 Kernel is
> dropping non-PAE flavour
>   https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1068862 upgrade
> from 12.04 to 12.10 on a sans-pae CPU leaves kernel broken
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
>
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+bug/1160346/+subscriptions
>