Any recommendation on avoiding linux upgrades that break drivers

Message boards : Questions and problems : Any recommendation on avoiding linux upgrades that break drivers
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Profile Joseph Stateson
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Message 93319 - Posted: 26 Oct 2019, 13:09:59 UTC
Last modified: 26 Oct 2019, 13:14:55 UTC

This does not happen very often but when it does it can be a PITA to recover from.

Just rebooted an 18.04 system and had to reinstall NVidia drivers. Unlike the AMD ones the NVidia frequently survive an upgrade.

From googling the difference between update and upgrade it seems I need to avoid the upgrade. I think I know what happened: I put in an ftp server and did an update followed by an upgrade. I assume the problem was the upgrade. I can't find where I got the walkthrough for the ftp server but I suspect they did it and I just copied what they did and pasted it. The problem with searching for help on Linux is there are numerous OS changes and a walkthrough for xxx.23 does not work the same as when you are running a different version or kernel.

I also get notices occasionally of "updates waiting". I assume those are needed. Have also noticed the list of updates seem to grow quickly if I don't apply them.

I assume that if I stop doing "upgrade" I will not have to reinstall any NVidia or ATI drivers in the future. Is that correct?
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robsmith
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Message 93321 - Posted: 26 Oct 2019, 14:21:54 UTC

The key thing is why did you do the upgrade?
Was it just to have the "newest and latest", or was there a feature in the upgrade you really needed.
It is best only to do upgrades that YOU really need, then you will avoid the pain of having drivers that don't work, or things you really use a lot break.
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Profile Dave
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Message 93322 - Posted: 26 Oct 2019, 14:57:33 UTC - in response to Message 93321.  

The key thing is why did you do the upgrade?
Was it just to have the "newest and latest", or was there a feature in the upgrade you really needed.
It is best only to do upgrades that YOU really need, then you will avoid the pain of having drivers that don't work, or things you really use a lot break.


Interesting,
My experience of the latest Ubuntu is that boot times are just about noticeably faster. Resume from suspend to RAM is a lot better. One other niggle with it but that is now sorted. I upgrade my version twice a year without fail. but I don't have any fancy graphics cards to break the drivers of!
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Profile Keith Myers
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Message 93325 - Posted: 26 Oct 2019, 20:10:00 UTC

Periodically do a sudo apt update. But after that do a apt list --upgradable and examine the list of potential upgrades. Decide if anything looks desirable or to the point, will any upgrade break anything you currently have configured. You can always choose which of the suggested upgrades you want to apply and which you want to hold back.
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Profile Keith Myers
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Message 93326 - Posted: 26 Oct 2019, 20:13:18 UTC - in response to Message 93322.  

The key thing is why did you do the upgrade?
Was it just to have the "newest and latest", or was there a feature in the upgrade you really needed.
It is best only to do upgrades that YOU really need, then you will avoid the pain of having drivers that don't work, or things you really use a lot break.


Interesting,
My experience of the latest Ubuntu is that boot times are just about noticeably faster. Resume from suspend to RAM is a lot better. One other niggle with it but that is now sorted. I upgrade my version twice a year without fail. but I don't have any fancy graphics cards to break the drivers of!


I wanted the newer 5.0 kernels since they are faster than the stock kernels provided in Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. So added the hwe enablement stack to get the newer kernels which are both faster and have more support for newer hardware. I haven't had any issues with them. If you are willing to deviate from box stock LTS, then I would recommend the 5.0 kernels.
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Profile Dave
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Message 93327 - Posted: 26 Oct 2019, 20:20:45 UTC - in response to Message 93326.  

. If you are willing to deviate from box stock LTS, then I would recommend the 5.0 kernels.

I have been on them since 18.10 I think.
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Message boards : Questions and problems : Any recommendation on avoiding linux upgrades that break drivers

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