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I tried to upgrade from 14.04 to 16.04 but it would not take and now I'm stuck between them and nothing works but terminal and I don't know how to fix. I need someone who can go through the report and tell me what to do. Please tell me how to generate the report, where and how to send from terminal, I have no GUI. Thank you.

germeten
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    What is the report you want to show? And does it take more than one screen or is it very long? – Delorean Apr 12 '17 at 19:37
  • I am talking about the terminal screen report from login to its conclusion, attempting to upgrade to 16.04 with failure at the end and I presume the reasons why. About 2 pages. I only have terminal. I don't know how to save the report, how or where to send. I need the very specific command(s) to get it to an expert if you can help. I had to shut down and install 12.04 rescue CD to type this. Nothing works in 16.04, I am stuck between versions, and cannot access this forum or anything online although I presume my network is still good, at least it said bug reports were sent. – germeten Apr 12 '17 at 20:31
  • If you have netcat installed you can use termbin.com to obtain and provide a paste link that we can see. Here's an example obtained from the command echo testing | nc termbin.com 9999 there are other examples on the termbin.com home page as well. I hope this helps you. – Elder Geek Apr 13 '17 at 21:09
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it asks for interactive help which is not a service AskUbuntu made for – Anwar Apr 14 '17 at 15:27

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I think what you refer to as the "terminal" could be the Ubuntu boot process, with the kernel kicking in and all the services starting up. If this is the case then there is no definitive "report" to send with this information (that I know of). Instead, the output to your screen during the boot process is usually saved in several log files, which can be copied to USB or stored on a network drive (if you have one available) even from a live environment.

The log files which we may find useful are:

/var/log/dmesg
/var/log/syslog
/var/log/kern.log
/var/log/boot.log

These logs contain the boot process that flies by when you start Ubuntu up. With these logs, in a new post we may be able to assist further in getting your Ubuntu install back up and running.

Foxie
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  • Thank you but I don't know how to access or save those specific files from terminal. I didn't mean to suggest that there was any specific report I was referencing, just ordinary screen logging of functions run, and the results, following login & commands. Is there no commands and/or with an address to which I could just forward what's on my terminal screen? Again I've limited functionality, no GUI. Also inserting a thumb-drive is not recognized as present and I wouldn't now where to find it in a system that is dark. – germeten Apr 12 '17 at 22:05
  • Okay - you will need to find the /dev/sd* address and mount it using the terminal (or "CLI"). The post here explains how to do this in "Solution 2": http://askubuntu.com/questions/285539/detect-and-mount-devices.

    Once you have succesfully mounted the drive, you can use the "cp" command to copy those log files to the USB. Assuming you have followed the link above and have mounted the USB at /media/usbstick, you can then use commands like "cp /var/log/dmesg /media/usbstick/" to copy the dmesg log to the USB, and then "umount /media/usbstick" to eject the USB safely.

     – Foxie Apr 13 '17 at 10:16
  • Unable to read added comment "An error occurred while fetching comments" – germeten Apr 13 '17 at 17:01
  • Dear Foxie ...thank you, I followed instructions from the link page you provided. My ubs stick said msdos format so presume FAT/16/32. I think it mounted OK, all was fine until I tried to actually copy the files, response was "cannot create regular file: Permission denied." This after normal login & pw check. – germeten Apr 13 '17 at 17:58
  • Can you put the commands you are running to copy the files here? Can you also try running the same copy command with the word "sudo" (without quotes) before it?

    To check if you have actually mounted the drive correctly, type "mount" (without the quotes) and hit enter. This will display all currently mounted devices; you should see /dev/sdb1 (or similar) mounted to /media/usbstick. If it doesn't display in that output at all, you likely haven't mounted it correctly - and the system is denying permission on that basis.

     – Foxie Apr 14 '17 at 07:35
  • I followed the #4 instructions on the page you linked to. For manually mounting a FAT 16/32 system the command to mount is: sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/usb -0 uid=1000, gid=1000, utf8, dmask=027, fma I admit those parameters sound arbitrary and not necessarily universal to every machine, or my machine. – germeten Apr 14 '17 at 16:14
  • sudo mount -t vfat /dev/sdb1 /media/usb – germeten Apr 14 '17 at 20:22
  • ...mount: "/dev/sdb1 is already mounted or /media/usb is busy." cp: (any string command) "cannot create regular file ... '/media/usbstick ...Permission denied." ...or sudo mkdir /media/usb "Cannot create directory '/media usb:' files exists." – germeten Apr 14 '17 at 20:32
  • sudo cp /var/log/dmesg /media/usbstick/, sudo cp /var/log/syslog /media/usbstick/ – Foxie Apr 15 '17 at 08:38
  • My second try, foxie: sudo mkdir /media/usb (to mount) ...mkdir: cannot create directory '/media/usb:' file exists ...cp /var/log/dmesg /media/usbstick ...permission denied – germeten Apr 16 '17 at 00:34
  • I am stuck between versions 14.04 and 16.04. All I have is terminal command access, no GUI. There's a bunch of stuff, conflicts & dependencies reported I can't make sense of. I want to post those reports here but my computer says I don't have permission to write files to my UBS stick even though it says is present. I am doing everything here from 12.04 rescue disk. The commands that foxie gave me don't work yet, maybe I was unsuccessful mounting the usb stick but the instructions weren't clear, were inconclusive or do not work. Zanna, 2707974, Anwar, Pilot6, Eric Carvalho – germeten Apr 19 '17 at 00:27
  • I also posted my problems here: https://askubuntu.com/questions/899627/upgrade-to-16-04-failed ...and DocWeird 's advice DID NOT WORK, no disrespect, so I still NEED MORE HELP and I'm SORRY IF QUESTION WASN'T FORMULATED INTO PERFECT WORD STRING YOU LIKE. – germeten Apr 19 '17 at 11:43
  • I would like to add some computer screen output (typed longhand) since I cannot copy files but this field says my messages is too long; WTF – germeten Apr 19 '17 at 12:57
  • Gentlemen: I had to open a new question /906811/ where muru was a big help by providing me with the command: sudo dpkg --force-all --purge texlive-latex-base-doc and then sudo apt-get -f dist-upgrade...which got me unstuck and allowed the old files to be overwritten. Some are still missing but at least I'm online with GUI functions and preserved files. I must confess that I don't understand the format logic or rules of your forums. – germeten Apr 20 '17 at 05:20