Ubuntu release update, possible?

Enrico said 2 years, 4 months ago:

Is there a safe way to update Ubuntu 8.04 to a more recent version? (Safe = without being locked out)

Does anybody know why such an old version, going out of support in 4 months, is used?

JasonP said 2 years, 4 months ago:

@Enrico,

The operating systems offered on the servers are in place for optimum performance within our network. As the administrator of a Dedicated Server, you are able to attempt to update it, however we are not able to assist you during the process.

You are always able to email suggestions@godaddy.com to inquire about new operation system releases.

Jason

Enrico said 2 years, 4 months ago:

It is difficult to me to understand how an old version of Ubuntu is unlikely to offer optimum performance, in particular better performance than an updated release. Any explanation that helps me to understand this is most welcome.

Also, Ubuntu 8.04 will go out of support April 2011, 4 months from now.
What will happen then?

MLSquires said 2 years, 4 months ago:

I’m interested in running a much newer version of Ubuntu as well. However, with regards to 8.04 LTS, the desktop version goes out of support in April 2011, but the server version doesn’t go out of support till April 2013.

Enrico said 2 years, 4 months ago:

Thanks for the info about the server version having longer support (bad news for me .

I tried 3 times to make the upgrade, could install the software sources, download, install, but every time the system became inaccessible after the reboot (web also, not only ssh) and it had to be scratched.

If anybody knows why and how to make a successful upgrade please share the knowledge.

Enrico said 2 years, 4 months ago:

BTW, Drupal 7 does not seem to work on Ubuntu 8.04, installation fails with this message:

Web server Apache/2.2.8 (Ubuntu) PHP/5.2.4-2ubuntu5.6 with Suhosin-Patch
Error
PHP 5.2.4-2ubuntu5.6
Your PHP installation is too old. Drupal requires at least PHP 5.2.5, or PHP 5.2.4 with the htmlspecialchars security patch backported.

MLSquires said 2 years, 4 months ago:

Enrico, I went here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LucidUpgrades

I followed their instructions for going from 8.04 LTS to 10.04 LTS, including making sure that the grub config pointed to the new kernel.

And, just like, everything seemed to be fine – until I rebooted. From what I can tell the server didn’t ever make it back up.

I don’t know why – perhaps how GoDaddy manages the consoles, the network, or something.

My conclusion? That 8.04 Server LTS -> 10.04 Server LTS isn’t going to work for us until GoDaddy develops a process to do that. Until then we are stuck.

Michael

Enrico said 2 years, 4 months ago:

Michael,
Also in my case the download and install always went well and the failure always occured at reboot with the server not coming back online (web not reachable).

Obviously I am very surprised that one of the major hosting companies uses a 3 years old release of the most widespread Linux distribution and, even more, that it is not possible for the user to upgrade.
If I had realized that I would never have bought here, I don’t have time to learn another Linux distribution.

As already written this also has the side effect of preventing standard/easy usage of Drupal 7, which is claimed to be be a key version of one of the big 3 CMS.

MLSquires said 2 years, 4 months ago:

I’m in the same boat – and wish that I had realized this beforehand. We’re just finishing a 8.04 -> 10.04 upgrade at my workplace. Part of the pressure for upgrading was that to get up-to-date copies of various key software we had to either look for backports or just build things from source. I don’t want to have to go through that here as well.

As a simple example, on an 8.04 system looking for ‘git’ in apt-cache probably doesn’t give you what you need.

Just like you, I’m even willing to do the upgrade myself (the Ubuntu documentation and tools are very good for this), but if the system won’t properly come back on the air due to a GoDaddy-specific thing that I don’t know about, then it is just a wasted effort.

Michael

Enrico said 2 years, 4 months ago:

I tried at least three times, the system never came back

MLSquires said 2 years, 4 months ago:

Some links that may help you get as up to date as possible within 8.04:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/UbuntuBackports

In particular, I added the 8.04 backport repository to my /etc/apt/sources.list and was able to get some newer packages (like postgres 8.4).

Michael

RoniY said 2 years, 4 months ago:

@Enrico,

It looks like Michael is helping you out. If you are not able to get the upgrade working, you may want to discuss this with a member of our Server Support team through Chat.

~Roni

MLSquires said 2 years, 4 months ago:

RoniY – Enrico and I have been finding and collecting information, but we both are ending in the same place – any attempt to upgrade our servers from 8.04 LTS to 10.04 LTS (which is a perfectly legit and supported upgrade from the perspective of Ubuntu) results in a non-functional GoDaddy server.

At this point I don’t see a way for us to proceed without GoDaddy looking into this. Given the age (almost 3 years) of the 8.04 base and given that Ubuntu has had a new LTS for almost a year now, I would hope that someone at GoDaddy would know what barriers there are to this type of upgrade.

Michael

Enrico said 2 years, 4 months ago:

Upgrade to 10.04 should NOT fail under normal conditions. This is a reasonable assumption that I have not verified that experimentally (might do that in the next couple of weeks with Hardy server on vmware).
The cause of impossibility to upgrade probably is some godaddy specificity consequently I would have expected godaddy to at least solve individual requests of upgrade to 10.04 given that the impossibility to do it ourselves probably is .. their fault (again, this is an assumption to be verified).

I am a hobbist with no content yet that enrolled to start practising, so for me the solution is simple: write about this on my blog and in the various Drupal and Ubuntu forums and change hosting company in few months.

chrisg said 2 years, 4 months ago:

@MLSquires, @Enrico,

I wish to thank you both for bringing this to our attention. I definitely can understand the concerns regarding the upgrade attempts to 10.04 LTS that should not be failing on our Linux based Dedicated Server accounts.

I will be personally looking into this matter with our Server Support team to see what could be causing the errors described and what can possibly be done to address this concern. As soon as more information in regards to this matter can be found, an update to this matter will be posted.

Do keep us posted if either of you come across any more findings or developments that may assist in our investigation efforts.

Christopher G.