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I do update my Ubuntu-22.04 desktop daily. Yesterday (2023-08-09) a new version of initramf-tools got installed. It is version 0.140ubuntu13.4.

I do check every day the origin of all installed packages via apt-cache policy (package) and via apt show (package). The version above doesn't seem to be available within the official repos any more.

How shall I continue?

  • Uninstall version 0.140ubuntu13.4 and reinstall the previous version?
  • Ignore the situation?
+ apt-cache policy initramfs-tools
initramfs-tools:
  Installed: 0.140ubuntu13.4
  Candidate: 0.140ubuntu13.4
  Version table:
 *** 0.140ubuntu13.4 100
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.140ubuntu13.2 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/main amd64 Packages
     0.140ubuntu13 500
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages
+ apt show initramfs-tools

WARNING: apt does not have a stable CLI interface. Use with caution in scripts.


Package: initramfs-tools
Version: 0.140ubuntu13.4
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: utils
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Original-Maintainer: Debian kernel team <debian-kernel@lists.debian.org>
Installed-Size: 152 kB
Provides: linux-initramfs-tool
Depends: initramfs-tools-core (= 0.140ubuntu13.4), linux-base
Suggests: bash-completion
Conflicts: linux-initramfs-tool, usplash (<< 0.5.50)
Breaks: e2fsprogs (<< 1.42.13), initscripts (<< 2.88dsf-59.3~), netplan.io (<< 0.37), upstart
Download-Size: unknown
APT-Manual-Installed: no
APT-Sources: /var/lib/dpkg/status
Description: generic modular initramfs generator (automation)
 This package builds a bootable initramfs for Linux kernel packages.  The
 initramfs is loaded along with the kernel and is responsible for
 mounting the root filesystem and starting the main init system.
A.L
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Uli Heller
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    I see the same thing on my machine. It has happened a few times before that a package was pulled after it was released. – Artur Meinild Aug 10 '23 at 08:00

2 Answers2

4

From all available information so far, it seems this packages was in Phased Updates and reached 20%, and was then pulled back.

This most likely means that some of the first users to get this packages ran into one or more bugs that were considered serious enough to roll back the update (I haven't yet identified which bugs these are).

The recommended action in this case would probably be to roll back to the previous version.

This can be done with apt by specifying the exact version you want to install:

sudo apt-get install initramfs-tools=0.140ubuntu13.2 initramfs-tools-bin=0.140ubuntu13.2 initramfs-tools-core=0.140ubuntu13.2

This should downgrade back to the current version, and will output the following without any errors: (output from --dry-run)

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be DOWNGRADED:
  initramfs-tools initramfs-tools-bin initramfs-tools-core
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 3 downgraded, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Inst initramfs-tools [0.140ubuntu13.4] (0.140ubuntu13.2 Ubuntu:22.04/jammy-updates [all]) []
Inst initramfs-tools-core [0.140ubuntu13.4] (0.140ubuntu13.2 Ubuntu:22.04/jammy-updates [all]) []
Inst initramfs-tools-bin [0.140ubuntu13.4] (0.140ubuntu13.2 Ubuntu:22.04/jammy-updates [amd64])
Conf initramfs-tools (0.140ubuntu13.2 Ubuntu:22.04/jammy-updates [all])
Conf initramfs-tools-core (0.140ubuntu13.2 Ubuntu:22.04/jammy-updates [all])
Conf initramfs-tools-bin (0.140ubuntu13.2 Ubuntu:22.04/jammy-updates [amd64])

EDIT:The initial response from the package maintainer seems to indicate that the release was pulled because of a scheduling conflict with point release 22.04.3, and thus not pointing to any serious bug. I'll follow up on this - see here.

EDIT2: FWIW, it seems initramfs-tools 0.140ubuntu13.4 is back in the release pocket of the repositories.

Artur Meinild
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  • That wasn't as easy as it sounded - when I tried it, aptitude lit up with conflicts and none of the options suggested sounded palatable. I agree with your analysis of what happened, though. – Organic Marble Aug 10 '23 at 13:52
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    After testing with apt --dry-run I found that the proper way is to downgrade all 3 specific packages at the same time. – Artur Meinild Aug 10 '23 at 15:22
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    @OrganicMarble usually if you use aptitude in curses mode and tell the resolver to reject all removals it proposes, and then ask for another option, it will get the idea that downgrading stuff is really the right idea :) – hobbs Aug 10 '23 at 15:48
  • @hobbs it's my go-tool tool for stuff like this, but I couldn't get it to offer up the triple downgrade option. Weird. I'll give your method a whirl. – Organic Marble Aug 10 '23 at 16:29
  • They've been doing this a lot in jammy it seems. I just noticed gjs was in the same boat. It was easy to downgrade though. – Organic Marble Aug 10 '23 at 16:35
1

As of 8/17/2023, that version is back in the official repos for 22.04

initramfs-tools:
  Installed: 0.140ubuntu13.4
  Candidate: 0.140ubuntu13.4
  Version table:
 *** 0.140ubuntu13.4 500 (phased 10%)
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy-updates/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     0.140ubuntu13 500
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu jammy/main i386 Packages
Organic Marble
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