System update fails when updating gdm, rendering system unbootable

[tillkamppeter]

On the RISC-V board running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS I did the usual system update (~ 400 packages) via:

sudo apt update
sudo apt dist-upgrade

At least after correcting the partitioning of the card to have enough storage space (Issue #7) the update ran to the end, only the update of the gdm package (the login screen, also called "greeter") errored (on the execution of a maintainer script). 5 other packages stayed without updating, probably blocked by dependencies due to the failed gdm.

I rebooted the system afterwards and instead of showing the login screen, the screen stayed black. Due to issue #5 (USB keyboard does not work in text mode) I was not able to switch to a text console to do any fix.

[sandiecao-dc]

This is a known issue.
It will be fixed in the next release during two weeks.

[rarenerd]

Running the dist-upgrade pulls in a new kernel (6.8.0-52-generic for me). That is probably missing some of the magic required to get a working system.

As a workaround selecting the 6.6.20 kernel from GRUB, or if you can't try resetting the symlinks in /boot or updating GRUB via a second system. That got my system in a working state again.

[sandiecao-dc]

We already release new version V1.1 . It already fix the issue. we will close this issue.