My desktop is fitted with the 22.04 LTS version. But I want to upgrade to the latest one. I regularly get automated announcement that a new version is available but when I click on the "upgrade now" nothing happens. I tried through the terminal, again I'm denied and it ask me to install the latest update (which I did through a sudo apt update/upgrade). If I try with the Software updater, I can't even do that as it says my computer is not connected to Internet, which is untrue because I'm writing this message on my desktop.

So, what do I need to do to upgrade either to the 24.04 LTS or even 26.04 LTS without having to reinstall from scratch?

Title

PXE autoinstall Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 fails at snapd.seeded.service

Body

I am setting up PXE-based autoinstall for Ubuntu Desktop 24.04.4. The install consistently fails during boot with:

[FAILED] Failed to start snapd.seeded.service - Wait until snapd is fully seeded.

Environment

• PXE boot using dnsmasq (DHCP + TFTP)
• Root filesystem via NFS (casper)
• Autoinstall config served over HTTP (NoCloud datasource)

What works

• Manual PXE boot + install (Desktop 24.04.4) works
• Ubuntu Server autoinstall:
  • 22.04 (preseed) → OK
  • 24.04 (cloud-init) → OK

What fails

• Ubuntu Desktop 24.04.4 autoinstall → fails at snapd.seeded.service

Relevant logs

Apache access log (cloud-init requests succeed)

10.10.67.64 - - [24/Apr/2026:14:10:00 +0100] "GET /auto-install/desktop/user-data HTTP/1.1" 200 1621 "-" "Cloud-Init/25.2"
10.10.67.64 - - [24/Apr/2026:14:10:22 +0100] "GET /auto-install/desktop/meta-data HTTP/1.1" 200 325 "-" "Cloud-Init/25.2"
10.10.67.64 - - [24/Apr/2026:14:10:22 +0100] "GET /auto-install/desktop/vendor-data HTTP/1.1" 200 256 "-" "Cloud-Init/25.2"

This confirms the client is successfully retrieving autoinstall data.

dnsmasq (DHCP + PXE)

DHCPDISCOVER(enp4s0) 08:00:27:7c:a4:0d
DHCPOFFER(enp4s0) 10.10.67.89
bootfile name: bios/pxelinux.0
next server: 10.10.67.52

DHCP and PXE handoff appear normal.

Client boot (failure point)

Starting cloud-init.service - Cloud-init: Network Stage...
[ OK ] Reached target network.target
[FAILED] Failed to start snapd.seeded.service

PXE kernel parameters

APPEND ip=dhcp netboot=nfs \
nfsroot=10.10.67.52:/var/www/html/ubuntu/desktop.24.04.4 \
ro boot=casper autoinstall \
ds=nocloud-net;s=http://10.10.67.52/auto-install/desktop/ ---

user-data (cloud-init)

#cloud-config
autoinstall:
  version: 1
  source:
    id: ubuntu-desktop-minimal
  identity:
    hostname: ubuntu-desktop
    username: ubuntu
    password: "<hashed>"
  storage:
    layout:
      name: direct
  updates: security
  shutdown: reboot

Question

Has anyone seen snapd.seeded.service fail specifically with Ubuntu Desktop 24.04 autoinstall over PXE?

I’m trying to determine whether this is related to:

• NFS-based root (casper)
• Desktop-specific snap seeding requirements
• Networking or timing issues during early boot

Any pointers or known issues would be appreciated.

I downloaded the new LTS yesterday and my Ubuntu Pro says “you need an LTS version of OS to use Ubuntu Pro”. But I do have the LTS version. Any thoughts?

I want to switch layouts using ctrl + shift just like windows. So i installed gnome tweaks and select control + shift(and also left ctrl + left shift). Still it does not work. Why?

Kubuntu 26.04 Resolute Raccoon (LTS)

devs, please don't use "Backports" repo for new (fresh) installations. Packages within backports are mostly unstable so not recommended for use if yo want a stable system....

André

# Automatically generated by Calamares on 2026-04-24.
# See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/UpgradeNotes for how to upgrade to
# newer versions of Kubuntu.
## Ubuntu distribution repository
##
## The following settings can be adjusted to configure which packages to use from Ubuntu.
## Mirror your choices (except for URIs and Suites) in the security section below to
## ensure timely security updates.
##
## Types: Append deb-src to enable the fetching of source package.
## URIs: A URL to the repository (you may add multiple URLs)
## Suites: The following additional suites can be configured
## <name>-updates - Major bug fix updates produced after the final release of the
## distribution.
## <name>-backports - software from this repository may not have been tested as
## extensively as that contained in the main release, although it includes
## newer versions of some applications which may provide useful features.
## Also, please note that software in backports WILL NOT receive any review
## or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
## Components: Aside from main, the following components can be added to the list
## restricted - Software that may not be under a free license, or protected by patents.
## universe - Community maintained packages.
## Software from this repository is only maintained and supported by Canonical
## for machines with Ubuntu Pro subscriptions. Without Ubuntu Pro, the Ubuntu
## community provides best-effort security maintenance.
## multiverse - Community maintained of restricted. Software from this repository is
## ENTIRELY UNSUPPORTED by the Ubuntu team, and may not be under a free
## licence. Please satisfy yourself as to your rights to use the software.
## Also, please note that software in multiverse WILL NOT receive any
## review or updates from the Ubuntu security team.
##
## See the sources.list(5) manual page for further settings.
Types: deb
URIs: http://nl.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu
Suites: resolute resolute-updates resolute-backports
Components: main universe restricted multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

## Ubuntu security updates. Aside from URIs and Suites,
## this should mirror your choices in the previous section.
Types: deb
URIs: http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/
Suites: resolute-security
Components: main universe restricted multiverse
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg

I have a computer (Kubuntu 24.04) on my local network with 3 folders shared through samba. Two of them are on an internal hard drive and the other computers on the network are able to access them with no issues.

However, the 3rd one is on an external usb hard drive and I haven't been able to get the other computers on the network to mount this one. In /etc/fstab I have:

UUID=A8C0-A4CD    /media/user1/Rocstor    exfat rw,defaults,uid=1000,gid=988,fmask=0002,dmask=0002  0 0

to mount it when the computer starts.

In /etc/samba/smb.conf, I have:

[rocstor_folder]
comment = rocstor_ls_x
path = /media/user1/Rocstor/rocstor_shared
valid users = sambauser, @sambashare
writeable = yes
browsable = yes
read only = no
force group = sambashare    

and the folder permissions:

$ stat /media/user1/Rocstor/rocstor_shared
  File: /media/user1/Rocstor/rocstor_shared
  Size: 131072          Blocks: 256        IO Block: 131072 directory
Device: 8,66    Inode: 2           Links: 6
Access: (0775/drwxrwxr-x)  Uid: ( 1000/    user1)   Gid: (  988/sambashare)

smbclient (ls1 and ls2 are the ones that work):

$ smbclient -L 10.0.0.9
Password for [WORKGROUP\user1]:

    Sharename       Type      Comment
    ---------       ----      -------
    print$          Disk      Printer Drivers
    ls1             Disk      
    ls2             Disk      
    ls_www          Disk      
    rocstor_folder  Disk      rocstor_ls_x
    IPC$            IPC       IPC Service (linuxserver server (Samba, Ubuntu))
SMB1 disabled -- no workgroup available

When I try to mount this from the other computers it says the share isn't found. I haven't been able to figure out why they can't see it.

Ubuntu VPS.

• Cron service active.
• * * * * * touch /root/test works.
• Fixed-time touch works intermittently.
• /root/trading_bot/run_scheduler.sh runs manually.
• Cron will not run run_scheduler.sh or python script.
• chmod +x done.
• Tried /bin/bash script.sh and absolute paths.

What should I check next?

I have installed the newest Ubuntu 26.04 LTF. I have activated my PRO version. And I have followed the Surface 7 Pro instructions on Zorins forum (They were the newest I could find, and have worked for me on other Ubuntu based instalations until now.)

You can see the setup here: https://help.zorin.com/docs/getting-started/set-up-microsoft-surface-device/

But when I follow those instuctions, and reboot my computer, I just get a text based login screen. And I can't get to the Ubuntu GUI from there.

What do I do wrong.

Would it be possible, that the Ubuntu install, checks for a Surface computer, and automatically sets up the kernal on install?

I wanted to connect to my Hyper-V Ubuntu 26.04 VM.

Fist, I connected from Win 11 by Hyper-V Manager Connection, but that doesn't allow me to copy & paste text between the Windows 11 host and the Ubuntu guest.

So, I enabled Settings -> System -> Remote Desktop -> Desktop Sharing in the guest OS (Ubuntu 26.04).

That worked; however, when the session locked after some time, the remote connection disconnected automatically. I found online I should enable Remote Control. I did so, but I am unable to connect to the VM from RDPMan (The server denied the connection).

Btw, grdctl returns a disabled status, despite the Settings -> System -> Remote Desktop -> Remote Login - Remote Login beign set to enabled

$ sudo grdctl status
[13:35:13:312] [22327:00005737] [ERROR][com.freerdp.crypto] - [x509_utils_from_pem]: BIO_new failed for certificate
RDP server certificate is invalid.
Failed to lookup legacy VNC password schema: Failed to execute child process ?dbus-launch? (No such file or directory)
RDP:
    Status: disabled
    Port: 3389
    Authentication methods: credentials
    TLS certificate: 
    TLS fingerprint: (null)
    TLS key: 
    Kerberos keytab: 
    View-only: yes
    Negotiate port: yes
Failed to read credentials: Failed to execute child process “dbus-launch” (No such file or directory).

It's a clean Ubuntu 26.04 installation.

What am I doing wrong?

The Issue

I get blue colored window border for some apps. I installed Spotify, and Brave as deb packages. Still I get this blue border. I have also find the same issue with Snap and Flatpak versions of spotify-client. See the screenshot:

What is the reason of this problem? How do I fix this? Do all users face this? I face this from before upgrading to Ubuntu 26.04 LTS. I recently upgraded, but the issue is still there.

System Details Report

Report details

• Date generated: 2026-04-24 16:44:55

Hardware Information:

• Hardware Model: Acer TravelMate P214-53
• Memory: 16.0 GiB
• Processor: 11th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-1135G7 × 8
• Graphics: Intel® Iris® Xe Graphics (TGL GT2)
• Disk Capacity: 752.2 GB

Software Information:

• Firmware Version: V1.43
• OS Name: Ubuntu 26.04 LTS
• OS Build: (null)
• OS Type: 64-bit
• GNOME Version: 50
• Windowing System: Wayland
• Kernel Version: Linux 7.0.0-14-generic

I have reached out to everyone i can so this is my last hope. I need Ubuntu Pro Licenses for 2 22.04 LTS and 1 24.04 LTS servers run on AWS Lightsail but i cannot find where to get them.

AWS Marketplace does not support Lightsail Canonical have not got back to me after chasing multiple times and any advice will be handy as i need this to complete my CE+ Cert.

I am unable to boot the Live USB of Ubuntu Cinnamon 26.04 on a Dell Optiplex 7050 Micro (Intel HD 630). The boot process hangs indefinitely after "Get:6 file:/cdrom resolute/universe...".

I have tried the following without success:

• Both UEFI (GPT) and Legacy (MBR) boot modes.

• Multiple USB sticks and flashing tools (Rufus, BalenaEtcher, Ventoy).

• Boot parameters: nomodeset, copytoram, pci=nommconf, usbcore.autosuspend=-1.

• Disabling Secure Boot, VT-d, and TPM in BIOS.

Older distros like Peppermint 10 boot perfectly on this exact hardware. There seems to be a major regression in the 26.04 kernel or dracut initialization for this chipset.

This is a major disappointment. I prepared this machine with a brand new M2-disk, and have waited months for the 26:04 to be released. The machine now goes back om the shelf while I wait for a fix. The plan is to test this distro on this machine in hope of that Ubuntu Cinnamon can take over all the machines here running Peppermint 10 Respin (with Ubuntu Pro) - until 2028 max. I can wait longer, but if this isn't fixed by the autumn, I will be very angry and inclined to look somewhere else.

I'm deeply disappointed and utterly broken after hours of trying and failing.

When can we expect the Ubuntu Server 26.04 LTS image in MS Azure?

Expected UX: I can minimize/close the notification area without instantly dismissing all the notifications. When clicking on date/time, the notification area is reopened with all remaining notifications.

The notifications area should have the possibility to dismiss notifications individually and also a possibility to dismiss all notifications.

Reference UX: Notifications on Android

I bought a new system with AMD Ryzen zen3 5500GT and an Asus prime b450 motherboard. I have installed and have been using Ubuntu for the past three years, but now I can't install it.

Today I downloaded an Ubuntu 26.04 stable ISO and created a USB installation image. I have tried to install Ubuntu from this. Everything is working fine, except Ubuntu failed to load firmware for Realtek PCI wireless WiFi adapter. While booting through USB I have seen the following error with a red line.

Firmware for Realtek wireless LAN not available.  

After installing Ubuntu and booting WiFi settings in unity desktop can't find any devices.

When I run the command nmcli I get this error message: wlan0 disconnected.

Please suggest how to install driver or firmware for Realtek PCI wireless WiFi adapter 8192EE.

Yesterday I installed Ubuntu 26.04 on my quite old HP ProBook 650 G1 4GB/128GB, and I got this message when installing Ubuntu. It works from a live USB. I am a newb to Linux. Do you have any suggestions on how to overcome this?

                               Ubuntu 26.04

                                  . . . . [  34.445192] ACPI BIOS Error (bug)
: AE_AML_BUFFER_LIMIT, Index (0x00000032) is beyond end of object (length 0x32)
 (20251212/exoparg2-393)ERROR: Firmware file "b43-open/ucode30_mimo.fw" not found.
[   34.445273] ACPI Error: Aborting method _SB.WMID.WQBE due to previous error
(AE_AML_BUFFER_LIMIT) (20251212/psparse-529)o https://wireless.docs.kernel.org/e
[   34.447132] Error expected type 2 for elem 13, but got type 1 instead load the
correct firmware for this driver version. Please carefully read all instructions
on this website.

my computer is a Samsung Book 2 Pro 5G. The following System program problem detected message appeared while installing Ubuntu Desktop 26.04.

I reinstalled Ubuntu 24.04 few weeks ago and have had no issues until today when all of a sudden image files only show generic thumbnail icon instead of image preview thumbnails. Here's what it looks like:

I've followed every suggestion and solution that I could find and the problem persists. Anyone have an idea of why this happened and a solution that works?

--EDIT--

Thanks DanielT. I looked at the link you provided. I've performed the same steps as did the OP, to no avail. As for the Solution, I've updated AppArmor cuz that was easy, but I'm not sure to do the following:

I cannot install the new Ubuntu with Hardware-backed encryption because of this error:

PCR_UNUSABLE
error with secure boot policy (PCR7) measurements: unexpected EV_EFI_BOOT_SERVICES_APPLICATION event for \EFI\BOOT\BOOTEX.EXE after already seeing a verification during the OS-present environment. This event should be for the initial boot loader.

I have reset the TPM and reset the secure boot keys, I have cleared the drive so it is completely empty.

I am using a Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 1 (Intel Edition), I have disabled the Intel features like AMT.

Is there anything I can turn off to fix this issue? Anything will help.

I could not install Adobe Photoshop Elements on a Windows 11 Pro Virtuell Maschine. I solved the Problem and made the RAM bigger to 4,1 GB. Thank You for Your attention.

I was trying to install Ubuntu 26.04 and I'm getting tons of error messages. I'm asked if I want to report them and send them to Canonical (I said yes). Then I proceed with the installation and choose my options. At a certain point, I get to a screen where the installation can't continue, so I have to stop. The next button can't be clicked. I've attached a screenshot. If anyone can help, thanks! Regards, PP

_

I am on Ubuntu 24.04. After a recent update, some of my files, including:

1. png image generated by one of my codes

2. Screenshots taken

3. Clean pdf files downloaded

have no preview thumbnails that were downloaded after the update was installed.. Older ones are still being displayed correctly. I tried the following commands:

sudo rm -rf \~/.thumbnails/\* \~/.cache/thumbnails/\*

and

sudo dnf install glycin-thumbnailer

but they did not work, and the problem only got worse after executing the first of the above commands, where the remaining thumbnails were also gone. I also tried nautilus-q but it didn't work.

I want to do that for two reasons:

Firstly, in the workplace setting I never need or indeed tolerate HDMI output to broadcast my sounds at large. Secondly, there seems to be a bug in Ubuntu where when I plug in headphones, the system correctly re-routes sound from HDMI to laptop, but towards speaker not headphone - still broadcasting at large; I hope disabling HDMI will get rid of that. So I need to disable specific sinks instead, because of integrated chipset.

It looks like not only Pipewire has new bugs Pulseaudio didn't, but it also has no GUI or even command-line tuning (wireplumber exists but has laughable cmdline and no GUI), instead user is expected to write json files to their dot dirs to configure. I would prefer a console or GUI tool, but JSON writing recipe is not off limits.

I've reviewed existing popular answers:

• Disabling port switch looks wrong because I still want switching between headphones and speakers, just never HDMI;
• Blacklisting snd_hda_codec_hdmi does not work - upon reboot the module is still loaded and HDMI sinks present; even if it worked, I believe it would disable the entirety of Meteor Lake controller, including speaker/headphone.
• I am using Meteor Lake super integrated chipset, meaning there's not two separate audio controllers but a single one - so there is no option to disable separate HDMI controller entirely:

I have a strange thing I cannot figure out. Have checked manpages, etc. So hoping someone else had the same issue.

To convert from a normal .list file to a .sources file, as is now used in Ubuntu 24.04 LTS, I will use tor as an example:

Old way (tor.list):

deb [arch=amd64> signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org jammy main
deb-src [arch=amd64> signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg] https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org jammy main

New Way (tor.sources):

Types: deb
URIs: https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org
Suites: jammy
Components: main
Signed-By: /usr/share/keyrings/tor-archive-keyring.gpg

The problem I have is this:

In the tor.sources, from what I can find, there is no way to specify the arch / architecture. I've tried arch, architecture, system, etc. Nothing works.

This is the error I get:

N: Skipping acquire of configured file 'main/binary-i386/Packages' as repository 'https://deb.torproject.org/torproject.org jammy InRelease' doesn't support architecture 'i386'

I know this is a cosmetic thing and it mostly just effects logs, etc. But, simply finding a way to specify the arch would fix this entirely.

Anyone has any ideas?

• Note: in this example jammy is used, because tor does not yet have noble and jammy does actually work on noble for most repos! This is not the cause of this issue and is not going to solve it :)

• RESPONSE TO BEING DUPLICATE (Skipping acquire of configured file 'main/binary-i386/Packages' as repository 'xxx' doesn't support architecture 'i386') ... That is for Ubuntu 22.04 and discusses ".list" files. ENTIRELY DIFFERENT FORMAT AND NOT AT ALL SAME AS ".sources" files.

Starting yesterday, began seeing thousands of messages like this in the auth.log

sshd[3635916]: banner exchange: Connection from 202.142.184.68 port 24571: invalid format

Almost 17,000 occurrences of the same ip address shown above, and about 500 occurrences of various other ip addresses. The ports are always changing, and I wonder if this is a brute force attempt. I have ufw enabled which includes this rule I added several minutes ago

Anywhere DENY IN 202.142.184.68

but that hasn't stopped the messages. iplocation places the ip address in Pakistan. I have ssh set up to allow connections from only one port, and it's not the default port for ssh. For my userid on the server, I ssh (Putty) without a password, using a secure key.

Any way to stop these sshd connection attempts, or whatever they are. Should I try fail2ban as mentioned in How can I stop ssh bots from trying to SSH in as root?

BTW, server is 22.04.1

I have an unattended script for installing servers. At the beginning of the script there is a sudo apt-get dist-upgrade --yes. The dist upgrade has a nasty user input screen at its end asking to restart services:

Is it possible to autoaccept service restarts or disable this screen? It breaks my whole script. Also Im afraid it might leave my server stuck at some point when updating...

same result with apt-get upgrade

edit: I tried without success:

#!/bin/bash
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get remove apt-listchanges --assume-yes --force-yes &&

#using export is important since some of the commands in the script will fire in a subshell
export DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive &&
export APT_LISTCHANGES_FRONTEND=none &&

#lib6c was an issue for me as it ignored the DEBIAN_FRONTEND environment variable and fired a prompt anyway. This should fix it
echo 'libc6 libraries/restart-without-asking boolean true' | debconf-set-selections &&

echo "executing wheezy to jessie" &&
find /etc/apt -name "*.list" | xargs sed -i '/^deb/s/wheezy/jessie/g' &&

echo "executing autoremove" &&
sudo apt-get -fuy --force-yes autoremove &&

echo "executing clean" &&
sudo apt-get --force-yes clean &&

echo "executing update" &&
sudo apt-get update &&

echo "executing upgrade" &&
sudo apt-get --force-yes -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confold" --force-yes -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confdef" -fuyq upgrade &&

echo "executing dist-upgrade" &&
sudo apt-get --force-yes -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confold" --force-yes -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-confdef" -fuyq dist-upgrade

Under Ubuntu 18.10, Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, and Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 LTS, I used the method described in Nautilus - Thumbnailer for Ms Office documents to successfully generate thumbnails for Microsoft Office (.doc, .docx, .pptx etc.) documents.

Now, in Ubuntu 20.04 this does not work anymore. I gave a look at the msoffice-thumbnailer script and it seems to me that the problem is related to wrong paths generated in /tmp directory.

Please help!

I recently wanted to add a skin to Audacious, but when I went to add the skins files to the skins folder I was denied the action. Was greeted with "You are not the owner. You can not modify this folder"

I thought root had these privileges? Wasn't I automatically made the admin of my laptop when I installed Ubuntu? I am logged in to the admin account, not as a guest.

I' m trying to burn a simple mp3 data CD but I can' t get k3b/brasero/xfburn to work. Basically K3b says 'Please insert an empty or appendable medium', like if there wasn' t a CD in the DVD recorder. Similar error messages are shown with other tools. However K3b can recognize the DVD drive, because it can show detailed information about it.

*$ LANG=C sudo lshw -C disk* output

*-cdrom                 
   description: DVD-RAM writer
   product: DVDRW   DVR-K17B
   vendor: PIONEER
   physical id: 0.0.0
   bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
   logical name: /dev/cdrom
   logical name: /dev/sr0
   version: 1.02
   capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
   configuration: ansiversion=5 status=ready
 *-medium
      physical id: 0
      logical name: /dev/cdrom

I' ve added this configuration to my /etc/fstab file:

# cdrom
/dev/sr0  /media/cdrom0  iso9660  rw,user,noauto,unhide

When I execute:

mount -a

I don' t get any error message.

If I execute: mount /dev/sr0 /media/cdrom0

I get: mount: /dev/sr0: can t read superblock

On checking dmesg | tail, I can see: [ 1021.762622] EXT4-fs (sr0): unable to read superblock [ 1022.026866] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0]
[ 1022.026882] Result: hostbyte=DID_OK driverbyte=DRIVER_SENSE [ 1022.026890] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0]
[ 1022.026895] Sense Key : Blank Check [current] [ 1022.026905] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0]
[ 1022.026910] Add. Sense: No additional sense information [ 1022.026917] sr 0:0:0:0: [sr0] CDB: [ 1022.026921] Read(10): 28 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 01 00 [ 1022.026980] FAT-fs (sr0): unable to read boot sector

Does anyone know how to fix this?

Got a MacBook Pro, 13 inch, 500gb Hard Drive, 4gb memory. Made a massive screw up on dual install, luckily had already transferred files to Ubuntu one. Ok, trying to install from USB, boots from that perfectly. Currently using the "Try Ubuntu without installation". Looking at GParted:

/dev/sda1: fat32.   No mount point.          Size: 487Mb,    Used: 4.27Mb.   Flags: boot
/dev/sda2: ext2.    No mount point.          Size: 244Mb,    Used: 51.69Mb.  No Flags
/dev/sda3: lvm2 pv. Mount point: ubuntu-vg   Size: 465.05Gb, Used: 465.01Gb. Flags: lvm
Unallocated: Size: 1.02Mb

NB: This was after an attempted install using LVM(?) NB 2: I have no idea what any of these things mean :P I do physics (undergraduate), not computer science!

I keep seeing the install programme through. I have tried doing the install from the trial desktop, doing the install from boot, and doing the install with OEM.

Each time, whenever I restart (as required by installation), it just asks me whether I want to install (black screen with list of boot options). Never gives me the option to boot from currently installed Ubuntu.

I have even tried to take out USB before the restart and it comes up with a flashing file symbol with a magnifying glass in the middle!