So remember yesterday that Ubuntu's auto-upgrade program stalled halfway through, and I was worried about whether I should ever turn the machine off, for fear of not getting back in again?
So of course I forgot about that at the end of yesterday, for there had been food and drink taken, and in company too, and you know how that goes. So I turned the machine off as I always do, and blithely went to bed.
And woke this morning, and zoomed off to coffee without even thinking about turning it on again first; and came home in good time for the boys' breakfast and a massage after, in good time to check my email even before the boys' breakfast - and remembered, and thought "Hey-ho, let's see, then..."
And booted up, and - nothing. Blank screen. Blank mind, panic, OMGwhatamIsupposedtodonow? With added IhaveastorythatIhavetofinishtodayontopofeverythingelse.
But! After a couple of minutes of that, I thought, "Oh, wait - glimmer of light! Blank screen on boot-up is a known issue with new installs of Ubuntu on my graphics card, and the machine usually fixes that on updates, but if that's what got interrupted - well, I know how to hack the boot loader to get around that..."
So I did my little bit of hackery, and waddayaknow? Instant access. Yay me.
And then I found this lovely message from
brooksmoses, telling me how to run upgrades from a terminal; so I did that (after I fed the boys, aye), and the blessed thing even told me what had got interrupted yesterday and how to fix that manually, so I did that too, and it all worked, and now I have a settled happy machine again. And am reminded once again how much I used to love command-line computing, and how I really wish I'd learn(ed) Linux properly - way back when or even now, now would be good too - because this is like fumbling with a phrasebook as against speaking a language, and I resent myself for letting it happen this way.
Anyway, that's where we are: reconstituted. And thoroughly massaged (yay Ray!), and nothing to do now but IalreadytoldyouIhaveastorythatIhavetofinishtodayontopofeverythingelse.
Oh, and dealing with the detritus of last night. I should do that first. It's a mess out there.
So of course I forgot about that at the end of yesterday, for there had been food and drink taken, and in company too, and you know how that goes. So I turned the machine off as I always do, and blithely went to bed.
And woke this morning, and zoomed off to coffee without even thinking about turning it on again first; and came home in good time for the boys' breakfast and a massage after, in good time to check my email even before the boys' breakfast - and remembered, and thought "Hey-ho, let's see, then..."
And booted up, and - nothing. Blank screen. Blank mind, panic, OMGwhatamIsupposedtodonow? With added IhaveastorythatIhavetofinishtodayontopofeverythingelse.
But! After a couple of minutes of that, I thought, "Oh, wait - glimmer of light! Blank screen on boot-up is a known issue with new installs of Ubuntu on my graphics card, and the machine usually fixes that on updates, but if that's what got interrupted - well, I know how to hack the boot loader to get around that..."
So I did my little bit of hackery, and waddayaknow? Instant access. Yay me.
And then I found this lovely message from
Anyway, that's where we are: reconstituted. And thoroughly massaged (yay Ray!), and nothing to do now but IalreadytoldyouIhaveastorythatIhavetofinishtodayontopofeverythingelse.
Oh, and dealing with the detritus of last night. I should do that first. It's a mess out there.