Goodness. I have lost track of what Canonical is up to.

Sorry I somehow seem to have lost the ability to read first posts. Will definitely try to work on that.

http://askubuntu.com/questions/49094...-using-systemd

This is interesting to me. You may want to look at the menu entry if you try to reboot and see what you need to do to switch to upstart from systemd.

Just hit the e key to enter edit mode. Any changes you make are only for that one boot instance so if it doesn't work just reboot and it will be as it always was. To boot from edit mode you hit Ctrl + x once you have done your edit.

Your access to the Xwindows system without much else makes sense. All the xorg stuff is a system unto itself rather than running through dbus.

I need to reboot and get back to my usual haunts so as to have more resources for finding ubuntu "improvements".

Did you by any chance have any early warnings about this problem? Slow booting? Dog tripped over the power cord and killed a session? Refusal to completely shut down leading to powering it off with the power button?

Just seems to be a strange thing to happen at this point. If it were a few weeks ago I could see it because you must have gotten a "step" release package upgrade that would have added some things to your system to make upgrading to 16.04 posible. But even now you could have gotten a package upgrade to fix some bug in packages related to that. The LTS to LTS upgrade is a bit tricky and fairly well tested so a bug fix is definitely a possibility.

How do you deal with package update/upgrades?

I am not a Linux Guru, just a user who must use linux to be able to run the software I need to run.

So, I have no idea what are systemd or upstart, why one should be used instead of other, etc.

IMHO, an OS should be as transparent and user-friendly as possible to run the software the user needs to run and get the work done; and Linux is FAR from it (unfortunately). There is hope that at least the upcoming 'Snaps' will make it easy to install and run software (as the OSX software, and no, I am not a Mac user either, not by choice anyway [though I have used it before]).

Anyway, now that I vented a little, let's get back to work:

Yes, I know that 16.04 LTS is coming out in a couple of days, and if I cannot fix this mess by then, I will try upgrading to that. Though, I don't know if I can do an upgrade offline (booting from USB stick, etc.), can I?

I tried inserting init=/sbin/upstart into the GRUB boot text after hitting the 'e' key, but that did not seem to have changed anything. Is that the right way to do it?

This problem did show up maybe a couple of weeks ago, I just have time to work on it. So, maybe what you said had happened.

As for the updates, I just install them when they pop up in the GUI. I only use LTS releases, as the upgrades go.

OK. You don't need networking to run a lot of things for apt-get and a number of other package management tools.

Seeing how this seems to be a problem with dbus we will try the simple stuff. First we need to know what is installed.

I find 4 packages related to dbus in 14.04.
dbus

dbus-x11

dbus-java-bin

dbus-cpp-bin

The first 2 are what we need to worry about. Based on what? They are the ones installed on my system. Only that. The last one is not in the Debian testing repos so I have no idea what that is even for.

So we need to know how you deal with update/upgrade chores. If you have not changed default settings your system should be keeping all packages that you download when installing or have ever gotten an upgrade since you installed your system.

So you need to find out if /var/cache/apt/archives is populated. If not then we will have to aquire a connection so you can get packages.

However, if they are cached we can try and reconfigure the things. What that does is run the install script on the package again. This will many times straighten things out.

So first I need to know what happened when you booted to recovery. Did you get a # prompt there? While this is simply a stupid feature it will make what we need to do easier.

You can get online very easy, just use ifconfig and route command line tools.
This will tell you what is the name of interface (eth0 in my case):
Then give it an IP address, broadcast and netmask - valid ones for your LAN:
Now set route and you are connected - again, use valid gateway for your LAN:
See, easy! Will take minute or two at most.

While awaiting that information I will address some of your comments.

I have used several different OSs in my time. I started with MSDos. Really kind of liked the bugger. Was good at what it did which was basically a Word Processor which were much more common at the time than a PC. Had the opportunity to play a very little bit on Win 3.? not sure which one it was. Was kind of pretty but not as good for financial record keeping as MSDos.

Win98 was on the first box my wife and I bought in late 98. This was after my son was out of college. Ran that until 08. Was pretty good at keeping it clean and running for a decade. Box died (power unit fried).

We bought a Dell which was about 1000x more powerful. Had Vista on it. I am greatful to the fine folks at MS for Vista. Would have keep using their stuff if not for that.

I have also at times had the chance to play with Apple products.

Of all systems Gnu/Linux is the most transparent. Don't know how long you have run any distros but will readily admit that most of that transparency comes behind a language barrier. Most documentation uses what appears to be English. It really is written in Geek which is not my native tongue. I am not fluent. I can assure you that it becomes easier.

Proprietary OSs are not at all transparent. I became a Win power user and was very good at fixing problems using files from my install media to correct system breakage.

I was shocked at the power the user of a Gnu/Linux system has. Broke my first install (Ubuntu 8.04) 5 times the first week. Started dual booting with another 8.04 install on the 7th day. The Debian 8 install I just came from is still using the same /home partition that was from the reinstall of our "real" 8.04 install from that 7th day. I never broke the thing again because I did all my "experimenting" on the second "playtime" install.

User friendly is a myth. People use that to compare different systems and condemn one over the other because it doesn't work the way they think it should. In other words it is not user friendly because it is not what you are used to.

Intuitive is another word used. This is even sillier. Get you time machine and bring Thomas Edison back with you, put him in a room by himself with a computer. If it is intuitive he should be able to turn it on and figure out how to run it. Please give hime the passwords and user names required for what ever OS is on the thing and any needed to get the box to post for that matter (bios password, bois boot password system user password and administrative password). He will undoubtedly, with this information be intuitively able to run the thing.

No. It is what we are used to. What most people expect now is a system that will boot and run like Windows. When something goes wrong they turn the problem over to someone else for a fee. Ubuntu, last I knew, offers that very service for their OS. I am sure that they still do.

Ubuntu is not the original "user friendly" Gnu/Linux distro. That would be Mandrake in 1998. Wonderful gui tools, I think the best of any OS, for just about anything you need to do. Calling it Mandrake and using a Wizard/Magician as a logo was not very smart and they went bankrupt due to Mandrake the Magician suing them.

Was a corporate model of business and was sold to Connectiva in Brazil and became Mandriva. Mandriva was bounced around and landed in France. Last good release was early 2010. Was sold to a Russian outfit but most of the developers broke off, started Mageia, which has a sub forum here, along with a non profit organization to finance it with.

I have watched it since then. They are currently supporting Mageia 5. 6 should be out sometime soon. Probably in a couple months.

I recommend Mageia to people that are new to Gnu/Linux. Perhaps you should check it out.

A couple of things though. They only support for a short while when releasing a new version (about yearly). So upgrading is needed fairly often. The other thing is that if you do run into a problem requiring the use of the cli you will find few people on their forum, which is very good with helpful folks, that actually have much knowledge of using the cli.

That last point is mitigated by the OS being pretty damned solid. This is not someting I would say for Ubuntu.

Upgrading a broken system to a newer version is not going to be fun. It could possibly work. It probably would not. I would not even think about that for your case at all. First off 16.04 is not going to be close to stable until July.

Secondly they are trying to get this Snaps crap implimented. This is not going to help the individual home PC user a bit. Will if anything make for an unstable package management system and will increase, by quite a bit, the size of the system on your drive. It is aimed at people deploying software as a service from the cloud.

You probably have the package libreoffice installed. This is a meta package. It pulls in all the dependencies and recommended packages. Just like Snaps will.

The difference is that Linux doesn't need to have all the depends for every package installed. This is because most dependencies are libraries. If you have libwhatever installed for any reason what so ever and it is needed for other packages you only need the one copy of it on your system. The dll libraries under Windows are different. People pull in all sorts of applications from the internet and they have no way of communicating with any other applications or their dependencies. You would in that case need to have as many as 10 copies of libwhatever installed on your OS.

If you make use of cli tools from a Live Session of some Linux based rescue disk for Win you can easily find all the different copies of the dlls in a Windows install.

One of the reasons for this is that Windows doesn't have a true OS at all. It is, no matter what they claim, still based on DOS. Every application is basically a mini OS in and of itself. It is running on kind of a stub kernel. This is what makes Ubuntu be able to run now on W10. And why you have been able for about 20 years to run bash on Window through Cygwin anyway. Main difference there is that Cygwin was not a "native" application for Windows. Most applications aren't.

Ubuntu has used its users for a test platform for their plans for phones, servers, cloud and Enterprise offerings with no concern what so ever about the appropriateness of those applications to the PC user.

The main thing they have accomplished is to weaken security of the system in way that has been adopted by many other distros. The wide spread use of sudo is a good example.

Sudo is a wonderful tool for limiting many users of the same system so that they can have access to root privileges with out being able to screw other users. Problem is that every distro has to, has to, set up sudo in the default manner. That default manner is to give all users and all groups full root privileges with their user password. This is not secure. Setting up sudo to be used the way it is intended is not something you want to attempt. It is fairly complex.

But you have the convenience of no root password with Ubuntu. We certainly don't want to be inconvenient in the name of security.

Thus you get the condition, at least in Ubuntu 12.04, where booting to recovery gives you, for no password at all, a # prompt. This is simply dangerous. Most computers bought in box stores are set up to boot from the internet. Remote turn on and boot. A remote user can boot to recovery and own your system. A person with physical access can do the same. Gee just as convenient as Windows if the user has a blank password that apparently at least 40% still do. If you are not aware this means you are logged into Windows as Administrator (root in Unix like terms).

That takes transparency to a new level. System as a service is one thing. System as a glass house is another all together.

Linux Mint is Ubuntu based. I believe you have never gotten a free # prompt from them.

Gnu/Linux gives you all the tools you need for a secure, stable system. That doesn't mean all distros do. Ubuntu doesn't. They also don't want you messing with the system at all.

I don't know what applications you are running but they are probably available for any distro in the repos or there is a system in place to install them. Most distros are a lot more stable with "alien" applications than Ubuntu is. The process may well not be as convenient. But all the information for implementing about anything is readily available. And you do own it.

Of course that means if you break it you get to keep the pieces but that is true if you own a refridgerator too. Or a car or a house for that matter.

Yes I see. I think for the OP this is not quite as easy as it looks to us.

I don't know, reciting network is not available just started driving me nuts. If the kernel driver is loaded (lspci -k) getting connected is a matter of minute ...

Yep. But if we can simply run "dpkg -reconfigure dbus dbus-x11" and have a running system we won't have to do that.

If the packages are not there then we will do that.

But is is so not transparent or user friendly.

Be easy to fix in Windows. Just reinstall.

I am working off-site for the rest of the week, so I will not have an opportunity to continue working on the Linux Box until next week. I will post a follow-up then.

Meanwhile, here are some responses to widget's (LOOOONG) post:

I also started with MS-DOS (so, yeah, neither one us us is young ).

Vista was a disaster, just like Win95 and Win8.1. XP and Win7 are the best so far (considering I have not gone the way of Win10 yet, so we'll see about that soon).

When I say "an OS should be transparent", I think you misunderstood what I meant. I do not mean that OS should let you know what it does, and you should be able to dig in and customize everything. What I mean is that it should be as if it's not there (when I am running software on it to get work done). Many coders forget that coding is NOT most (99% ?) people do on their computers. People use computers as tools to get the real work done. So, any time I spend three days to get a graphics tablet or a 3D mouse (or any hardware, really) working under Linux, that is three days I am not doing my real work! Same goes with installing software under Linux, which often quickly explodes into installing a dependency required for a dependency required for a dependency required for a dependency required to run the real program I need to run. Simply unacceptable! Under Windows, I click the installer, and in seconds I have the program running. Same ease goes with installing a program under OSX or Android. Desktop Linux is hell for doing something as simple as installing a program, unless you go to its software center (and get an old version of a program with known security flaws).

User-friendliness or being intuitive is NOT a myth. Just like any other thing you may use (e.g., a tool), software and OSs can also be designed to be intuitive and user-friendly. Look at what happened with the touch-screens and smartphones! You see something on the sreeen, you touch it with your fingertip, and what you wanted to get done gets done! No wonder smartphones already took over any other computer platform in public use.

"10 copies of libwhatever installed on your OS"
So what? what size do you think that libwhatever is? A few kBs? A few MBs? Storage is dirt-cheap. I have two 8 TB disks on this box, and even SSDs you'd like to use for your OS are cheap nowadays. So, if having 10 copies of libwhatever makes it easy to run ALL of the apps, so be it.

Talk to you next week, have a nice weekend.

Different people different thoughts. I started with MS-DOS-3.0 I think, or was it 2.something. Anyhow, a friend of mine gave me RH-5.0 CD and that was it. Microsoft started losing ground. A.D. 2003 the only MS computer in the house was wife's XP desktop and it had BSoD. End of tiny and softy. From Red Hat I switched to Debian and this was when I really fell in love with Linux. I quit my job as an IT manager because I couldn't stand Windows any more. End of story. I enjoy MS free life very much.

As you know, the next LTS of Ubuntu, 16.04, is now released. I was planning to upgrade this 14.04 to that to see if that may fix it.

But it says here:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/XenialXerus/ReleaseNotes

"Upgrading from Ubuntu 14.04 LTS or 15.10 14.04 LTS to LTS upgrades will be enabled with the 16.04.1 LTS point release, in approximately 3 months time."

What? So, they released it before it was ready to be released?

If I download the image, do you think I can install it as an upgrade?

I personally am happy that it will not upgrade now. Never works with a wide enough selection of possible hardware until that first step release in July anyway.

Ubuntu releases by date. Not overall readyness for release of the system. In this case they at least are letting people know where a problem exists. This is an improvement.

There are advantages to a clean install too though. Great way to get rid of cruft for one thing.

If you are installed on separate / and /home partitions the clean install is pretty simple. You simply use the manual partitioning option, call, probably, "something else" in the clear Ubuntu way. This allows you to instruct the installer which partitons to use and which to format or not format. You need to have it NOT format your /home partiton.

All your ~/.foo files are there. This is all the config files that have been changed that control the look and feel of your install for your user. Each user has a different set so that if you and I were sharing the box I could be running a completely different DE and when I logged in that is what I would get and you would get the one your are using. We could be using the same web browser and still would have different bookmarks and other configurable user options.

I have done this sort of install for a long time and never lost a thing. But your /home may be home to data you do not want to loose. It is likely to survive the install. And you will not loose any important files because you have them all backed up. Backing up your data is recommended. Only takes once not doing it to loose it all. This should be done if you are doing a version upgrade for that matter.

If you are installed on only one partition this is also makes a clean install a good idea. You should have a separate /home anyway. But if you are installed on one partition this is basically your / (root) partition. It needs formatted. You may get a good install without that but you are asking for errors. Any changes in the file system due to some Canonical dev being bored will cause problems without the partition being formated to avoid such problems.

Draw back is that the new release will not be real stable yet. Most advice on the UFs from experienced users will be to wait at least a month. I always recommend not installing or upgrading until that July step release for, in this case, 16.04.1.

I gave that advice when I was one of 150 qualified testers. They ran 90% of us off by being abusive to people trying to help. Last I checked they had 13 qualified testers. Seriously doubt that quality control is better now.

That said if you are running a box with intel or amd 64 cpu and using intel graphics the thing should work. May not be real stable but should install and boot fine. If you are running ATI graphics with the OSS drivers it should be fine too. nVidia I don't know. Might work.

On another note I have only seen so far one article on the security risk of snappy packages on desktop boxes as of today. More will be coming.

I have no idea what software you are using but I would seriously be looking at someting not ubuntu based if you are reinstalling. Most software will run on any gnu/linux distro. You may have some that doesn't. I would check to see if you could get something;
A> reliable
B>usable

Your rant about usability sounds like you are running Unity to me. No other distro has that in there repos that I know of. Fedora tried to port it to theres and decided not to offer it. openSuse offered it on one version of theirs and dropped it due to having users that were not illiterate HS dropouts that work in a fast food place which is the market I personally think it is aimed at.

If you insist on something Ubuntu based try Linux Mint. I would recommend the Mate Desktop Environment although you may like their default Cinnamon DE. The underlying tools and basic system is the same as for Unity, Gnome 3. It is not a bad DE. I don't like it. My wife prefers Mate. Mate is a fork of Gnome 2 which was an easy DE for a Win user to switch to. Was for me and my wife anyway. Was also what my son used and a lot of other people. Was the most popular DE in Gnu/Linux for a while. It also works very well.

I use Xfce but don't recommend it for noobs because while I love it I have to admit that their menu sucks. I am a panel man and the Xfce panel once set up makes it so you don't need an application menu at all. It is what the Mate panel wants to grow up to be. But a usable fast menu is simply a great thing to have and the Mate menu is pretty slick.

LM with Cinnamon uses a menu system developed by LM and it is also very good. You can use either the Mate menu or the LM menu if you install LM with Mate.

Debian with Mate is pretty good but Debian doesn't ship packages with proprietary parts as does Ubuntu or LM. This is not hard to overcome there is a sticky thread in the Debian section of LQ that is all about setting up the sources.list.

Linux Mint also has a Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) which is based on Debian Stabel (Debian 8/Jessie) it has all those packages already. The security model is an improvement on the Ubuntu model. Not enough in my opinion but definitely an improvement.

I would go with LMDE if you can get your software. Anything you can get from the Ubuntu repos should be available from the LM repos.

Unity was actually designed for touch screen use. May work there even. Will work fine with keyboard shorcuts. You only need to memorize about 90 of them. The only reason people don't like it is that they don't want to learn something new (I paraphrase Canonical pronouncements there). Or because they are elitist gurus that don't want new users of Gnu/Linux which I was accused of for thinking it was an piece of crap. There is a wallpaper you can get that will cover your screen with a complete list of the keyboard shortcuts though.

But in 16.04 you can move the deskbar from the left side of the screen to the bottom left. Using a cli command. You can move the Mate panel any where you want with the config option as you can with the Xfce panel which will also go to a deskbar mode (virtical panel with horizontal launchers) from the config options.

And have a non secure package management option as a bonus.

Thanks for your long post of suggestions and explanations widget.

However, I am not going to install an OS that only a (small?) portion of Linux users use. The academic software I use are usually compiled and released as binaries for the "most common" Linux flavors, and I have not seen a single one mentioning Mint. This means, if something goes wrong and what I installed does not work, at least I can say that I am running Ubuntu, Fedora, CentOS, etc. that they have released this software for. Eliminates one parameter from the troubleshooting list from the get-go.

I am back at my desk and will try for a couple of days more to fixing the currently broken 14.04, before throwing the towel and installing 16.04. If I do a fresh install, I do not want to install an "old" version at this point, so it'll be the new LTS 16.04.

Oh, by the way:

What you wrote "Any changes in the file system due to some Canonical dev being bored will cause problems" is exactly the problem I have with Linux (and any other open-source software, for that matter)! Open source is a great idea in principle, but not in execution/practice (unfortunately).

when I do

dpkg -l | grep dbus

I see only the first two, among the ones starting with dbus (I also have many others that contain dbus).

When I do
ls /var/cache/apt/archives | grep .deb | wc -l

I see 71

I do get # prompt if I choose recovery and the root (or command prompt?) option.