unattended upgrade. what is it?

[pingball57]

I'm using my backup laptop as my HP is down for the moment. It's Toshiba satellite C850D on LL 3.4. I haven't updated it for months if not a year. On start up it runs horribly slow. If I restart I get a message of 'unattended upgrade in progress. do not turn off computer.' If left it take over 30 mins to restart. I can stop it with cont/alt/del & on reboot it has gone. It will sometimes resume later in the day. It's very noticeable that the fan suddenly goes into overdrive & everything grinds to a halt.

Once started, by checking 'resource usage', I can see the following using upto 170% CPU:
pid :1098  user: root  Command: /user/bin/python3 /user/bin/unattended-upgrade

Nothing shows in task manager using anything more than single figure CPU% but CPU at the top is flat out 100% almost all the time.

My question's are : what is this unattended upgrade ? & why is it running without my initiating it ? (One main reason I ditched windows was stuff running in the background, eating resources, that I had no control over.)

[Şerban S.]

Hi!

Please, provide specific information about the machine.
Guess-work here, is useless. There are tens of variations of Satellite C850.
And about the OS version. Why 3.8? It's too old to be updated. It's End Of Lifecycle.
I would install at least LL 4.8 instead, even LL 5.0. If my guess-work was close, it is a dual core CPU. LL 5.0 will work on it.
But without any specific data, these are just speculations.

Best regards!

[pingball57]

Hi Serban, thanks for responding. It's fairly old. 10yrs+ at a guess. It's my emergency back up. This is from system info :

-Version-
Kernel : Linux 4.4.0-160-generic (x86_64)
Compiled : #188-Ubuntu SMP Wed Aug 14 04:21:43 UTC 2019
C Library : Unknown
Default C Compiler : GNU C Compiler version 5.4.0 20160609 (Ubuntu 5.4.0-6ubuntu1~16.04.11)
Distribution : Linux Lite 3.4
-Current Session-
Computer Name : jpa-SATELLITE-C850D-11Q
User Name : jpa (JPA)
Home Directory : /home/jpa
Desktop Environment : XFCE 4
-Misc-
Uptime : 9 minutes
Load Average : 0.16, 0.61, 0.48

-Processors-
AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon™ HD Graphics : 777.00MHz
AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon™ HD Graphics : 777.00MHz
[dual core]

If LL3.8 is dead LL3.4 is deader. This may explain why my other HP laptop is also up the swanny as that too is on LL 3.4 & went U/S right after running install updates. Had had no previous problems with this though.

As to why still on 3.4? simply wasn't aware that not upgrading to a later version would create problems. Is this unattended upgrade actually trying upgrade to a later version?

[firenice03]

[member=7052]pingball57[/member]  [member=25275]Şerban S.[/member]


1st off - LL3.8 is still supported for just a wee bit longer

Linux Lite 3.8 Release - 1st February 2018 (End of Support April 2021)
https://www.freecinema2022.gq/download.php#roadmap


2nd LL5.0 most likely will not work for you in this instance; IF this pc is a 32bit machine - IF its 64 bit then by all means give it a go (figured 10+ yrs old LOL)


Some info about the unattended.... Most say harmless....
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Automa...ityUpdates

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions...s-schedule


Could reboot and run LL updates then do an Lite Upgrade to 3.8

[newtusmaximus]

https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-E-Seri...569.0.html  Says the processer is 84 bit.  Therefore worth trying a live DVD /USB on it to check all functions properly

https://uk.crucial.com/compatible-upgrad...-c850d-11q  States that the lappy came with 6GB RAM 2 slots (Max 8GB?) .  Try Menu/system/system information/Summary.  Will confirm what memory is actually installed


If that is so that should be ample to run LL5.9 64bit.  I am running happily of my 2007 Fuji with only 3 GB RAM. 

[Şerban S.]

Hi Serban, thanks for responding. [...]

Glad to help!

[...]
AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon™ HD Graphics : 777.00MHz
AMD E1-1200 APU with Radeon™ HD Graphics : 777.00MHz
[dual core]

Based on this info, my conclusion is you can install Linux Lite 5.0.
I (still) run it on a Lenovo ThinkPad T400, which is a 2008 machine. The only thing changed from the standard configuration, is a Kingston A400 SSD and a BIOS upgrade to the latest version which is a 2012 version. So, this is old too...

Now, about the RAM...
You forgot to copy the amount of RAM. Assuming the configuration is the standard one, you have 6 GB. This is 2 GB more than I have on T400. This should help a lot, mostly on browsing the internet, which is very resource hungry.
On my current machine (see left, Dell Precision T1700) I maxed to some 3,5 GB RAM but is hard to guess the equivalent RAM consumption since my CPU is a quad core HT.
The worst scenario is that youi'll be able to browse simultaneously up to 25 web pages and some other apps running in background, which I guess, is fair enough for this gran'pa. I'd say it's quite a nice tool, given the mobility. Maybe it worths investing in a 120 - 240 GB SSD. I did it and I'm happy.

As for the storage, this is my idea of the layout:
==============================================
/dev/sda1 [primary, ext4, 20480 MB, Root. Total = 20480 MB]
/dev/sda2 [primary, ext2, 61440 MB, /home. Total = 81920 MB]
/dev/sda3 [primary, SWAP, 6144 MB, /home. Total = 88064 MB]
/dev/sda4 [primary, ext4, depends on drive's capacity MB, /data. Total = 88064 + the available MB]
UNPARTITIONED at least 10 GB, to allow bad sector reallocation.
==============================================
On a 120 GB (114,440MB): Available = 26,376. Can make a 20 GB ext4 partition, /data. Reallocation space = 5,896 MB. Fair enough for a 120 GB drive.
On the Romanian market a 120 GB SSD is somewhere at 25 - 28 USD (23 - 25 EUR).

Maybe it worths mentionong that my data partition usually holds some 3... 6 GB of data so a 20 GB partition should fit the bill!
When I do video editing, I finish the project than move it on external. For this purpose I use two 4TB drives, which hold the archive for the last 17 years of work.

Good luck!
I would be happy to hear you made it!

[Şerban S.]

[...] I am running happily of my 2007 Fuji with only 3 GB RAM.

Hello!

I assume that we're speaking of this:

2006 - Fujitsu Siemens Si1520 Laptop Intel T720 cpu 3GB Ram LL 4.8 64bit  LL 5.0 64 Bit

I'm happy to hear that LL 5.0 works well on this machine!
On my Lenovo T400, I was doing video editing (slow, Ok...) so that is good news too!
Did you report this machine to the LL hardware database?
It looks to me a good machine, even if old.
As for me, I'm going to keep the T400, as long as it will last! I'm very happy with it. The only thing that was difficult was the video editing, and the fact that one USB port is gone. That was bad...

Best regards!

[pingball57]

Thanks all for the info:

I can confirm this is a 64bit machine with 6 GB RAM.

Special thanks for the links about 'unattended-upgrades'. I've no idea if I (long ago) set this up or not but running < apt-config dump APT:eriodic::Unattended-Upgrade > returned <APT:eriodic::Unattended-Upgrade "1";> meaning it was set to run daily. I think I've now turned this off using <dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades > and selecting <No> from the returned dialogue box. I've checked using prev. command & now get <APT:eriodic::Unattended-Upgrade "0";>.
(source link : https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions...s-schedule)

I'll upgrade this laptop to LL4.8 or 5.0 shortly. Is there a tutorial for this. I've looked in 'help' & the forum tutorials section but can't see anything.

edit: No longer getting any 'unattended upgrade' problems so the above seems to be a fix.