Category: Raspberry Pi

switching away from that ubuntu update due to instability

whbeebe
Ubuntu 24.04 Desktop Raspberry Pi 5

As of today, a little less than 48 hours from when I switched back to 23.10 and updated, I’m back on my “pure” Ubuntu 24.04 desktop on my Raspberry Pi 5.

I don’t know why, but the updated installation proved to be unstable, with the system randomly rebooting after the update. I suspect that it was the extension manager coupled with the desktop clock that you will note is not running in the lower left corner. I had written earlier how very unstable the extension manager was after the initial 24.04 installation and how I had removed it completely. Apparently even grandfathering it in via the 23.10 -> 24.04 update proved to be as unstable as a clean install. Live and learn.

And since I’m living and learning I don’t think I’ll update to 24.10 in spite of what I wrote in the last post. I cherish stability above all else in my operating systems, both personal and professionally.

You might ask why I didn’t remove the desktop clock and the extension manager. Because I already had a clean stable install of 24.04 ready to go with very little effort to swap in. And just because I suspected it was those two applications, I couldn’t prove that was the issue. I didn’t want to run the risk that it was something else. So I just simply made the swap.

updating ubuntu 23.10 to 24.04 on my raspberry pi 5

whbeebe1 Comment
Ubuntu 24.04 on my Raspberry Pi 5

This is my original Ubuntu 23.10 installation that I allowed Ubuntu itself to update to 24.04. I already had written about installing 24.04 fresh onto SanDisk Extreme PLUS V30 128 GiB micro SDXC card, and that’s what I’d been using since 24.04’s release in late April. Then Ubuntu announced that they were allowing 23.10 users to update, in place, to 24.04. I swapped the older micro SDXC card back into my Raspberry Pi 5 and kicked off the update process. All told it took about two hours.

When I got back into my Raspberry Pi again I had to make three minor tweaks (so far) to get it back to my original settings. The minor tweaks weren’t out of anything nefarious Ubuntu did, it was update changes that were to be expected, especially when you consider all the changes that took place between 23.10’s release and 24.04. Never believe anyone on the internets who babble that changes are minor between Ubuntu’s last interim release and the following LTS release.

The minor changes that had to be corrected where due to Python being upgraded from 3.11 to 3.12. That meant I had delete the EXTERNALLY-MANAGED file from /usr/lib/python3.12, then reinstall powerline-status to get my shell and vim prompts back, luma.led_matrix (and all its dependencies) to get my matrix clock back on the external GPIO pins, and gpiozero to support additional GPIO functionality. Then I had to change my icons back to Papirus-Dark via gnome-tweaks because Ubuntu’s update changed them to Yaru. As I said, not much to twiddle with.

What I found extremely interesting is that I got my desktop clock back (lower left corner) and that the extension manager which provides the desktop clock is working correctly.

While I’ll keep my clean-installed 24.04 as a backup, I’m glad I was able to move back to my 23.10 installation and update it to the latest Ubuntu release. When 24.10 arrives in October I may just move on up to it.