Upgrade from 8.04 to 10.04 stalled indefinitely

[qwertyisms]

I am working with a previous wiped computer that I started out installing Ubuntu 7.10 on from disk, and in the process of updating, am stuck between 8.04 and 10.04, with 'about 9 minutes remaining' on the 'Installing the Upgrades' step.

The current process is "configuring dbus"
The latest text in the terminal reads:

Setting up dbus (1.2.16-2ubuntu4) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/dbus-1/session.conf ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/dbus-1/system.conf ...
The system user 'messagebus' already exists. Exiting.

Any help would really be appreciated. This happened once before, and I tried manually shutting down and restarting, which said something about the kernel being in panic mode, so I had to re-install from the disk again and upgrade from there.

[Irithori]

As the computer was wiped before, there is probably no data on it.
If so, then I suggest to download and install Ubuntu 11.10, which just came out.

Without going through major version updates of course. What was the purpose of that anyway?

[qwertyisms]

I've had significant trouble booting from the 11.10 disk that I'd burned twice-- somehow my system didn't recognize it as a bootable disk -- it only worked with the only other version (7.10) that I had.

What I'm doing now is burning 11.10 onto a disk and am going to try to run it while still in 7.10 (I had to shut down and restart and re-install)

Thanks for the suggestion. I realized the process was a little painstaking, but didn't see a way around it.

[qwertyisms]

Installing from a disk isn't working. Anyone know anything about the dbus stall?

[yancek]

What I'm doing now is burning 11.10 onto a disk and am going to try to run it while still in 7.10 (I had to shut down and restart and re-install)

Did you do an md5check on the download? Burn the iso file as an image at a low speed? What do you mean by "try to run it while still in 7.10"?

What operating system do you have installed now, if any?
How old is the computer?

Are you getting the same error now as you indicated in your first post when you boot the computer with your Ubuntu 11.04 CD in the drive?

[dolo724]

Install the newest version you have that works.
Download and install Unetbootin, then use it to make a USB bootable of 11.04.
It will allow direct download of a distribution rather than needing an ISO file.
Check the unetbootin.sourceforge.net notes for more possibilities.
It's Nice!

[qwertyisms]

I will look up how to do the md5check, which I had not done, in addition to burning at a lower speed if possible.

I meant to try to run the 11.10 disc while ubuntu version 7.10 is running, because my computer seems to have difficulty reading disks at startup.

I currently have 8.04 running, which will undoubtedly change soon as I either fail or succeed to install 11.10. The computer is a 3-year old Dell 1720 laptop that I suspect has an issue with one of the hard drives that I cannot currently afford to replace. Her nickname is Dellilah.

I am having the same problem booting with 11.10 in the drive -- the problem being that the computer simply won't read it, and after a couple failed attempts will bypass the cd/dvd drive and go for the OS, if there happens to be one.

Thanks for your response.

[qwertyisms]

Thank you, I will look into this.

[johnaaronrose]

I agree with dolo724 re using 10.04. It's much more stable than 10.10 in my experience of trying both on a number of computers. As for the Unity based 11.04, my advice is to steer clear: popular consensus seems to be that it's appropriate for netbooks but not for desktops/laptops. Also, unetbootin (though it needs to be installed) is more reliable than the supplied Startup Disk Creator, in that a usb stick with the distro created by Startup Disk Creator often fails to work e.g. 10.04.3 though 10.04.2 works.

[johnaaronrose]

I misread dolo724's post: I thought (s)he was referring to 10.04 whereas the reference was to 11.04. As somebody else said, IMO 10.04 onwards really needs 1GB: I run Netbook Edition 10.04 on a 0.5GB netbook and there are frequent pauses of a few seconds, particularly when using Firefox.