Ubuntu – Broken 14.04 LTS while upgrading to 16.04

14.04bootupgrade

I tried to upgrade, but errors occured. This is the tail of the output

Import process completed.
Done
done.
Processing triggers for libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0:amd64 (2.32.2-1ubuntu1.2) ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead (0.100.0-19) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.10.6-1ubuntu3.1) ...
Processing triggers for resolvconf (1.78ubuntu2) ...
Processing triggers for vlc-nox (2.2.2-5) ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon (0.5.3~bzr0+16.04.20160824-0ubuntu1) ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf-2.index...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 emacs24
 emacs
Error in function: 


Could not install the upgrades 

The upgrade has aborted. Your system could be in an unusable state. A 
recovery will run now (dpkg --configure -a). 

Setting up emacs24 (24.5+1-6ubuntu1) ...
Install cmake-data for emacs24
install/cmake-data: Byte-compiling for emacs24
emacs24: relocation error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.58.0: symbol _ZNSt7__cxx1112basic_stringIcSt11char_traitsIcESaIcEED1Ev, version GLIBCXX_3.4.21 not defined in file libstdc++.so.6 with link time reference
Install emacsen-common for emacs24
emacsen-common: Handling install of emacsen flavor emacs24
emacs24: relocation error: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libboost_system.so.1.58.0: symbol _ZNSt7__cxx1112basic_stringIcSt11char_traitsIcESaIcEED1Ev, version GLIBCXX_3.4.21 not defined in file libstdc++.so.6 with link time reference
ERROR: install script from emacsen-common package failed
dpkg: error processing package emacs24 (--configure):
 subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of emacs:
 emacs depends on emacs24 | emacs24-lucid | emacs24-nox; however:
  Package emacs24 is not configured yet.
  Package emacs24-lucid is not installed.
  Package emacs24-nox is not installed.

dpkg: error processing package emacs (--configure):
 dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
 emacs24
 emacs

Upgrade complete 

The upgrade has completed but there were errors during the upgrade 
process. 

To continue please press [ENTER]

I rebooted, and now the system does not boot. It posts a message

/dev/sda6: clean, 645654/20442624 files, 21700419/113769472 blocks

and it keeps flashing mildly the screen.
Any idea on how can I recover boot?

I know that one option is to reinstall. That is the subject of
Install Ubuntu from ISO… cannot install grub

Best Answer

You could try booting into an older kernel from the grub menu. Holding the shift key while booting should give you the grub boot menu.

Hopefully you will see a newer kernel that was installed as part of the upgrade and also an older kernel version to boot into.

If the older kernel is an option then boot into it. Then you can try to fix any broken packages with

sudo apt-get -f install

From previous experience I normally give up and do a clean install if things don't go smoothly when upgrading. In fact when I went from 14.04 to 16.04 I just choose the clean install option. You may be able to perceive and fix the boot problem only to find other issues exist and you may spend more time than its worth fixing them.

Worst case (and probably easiest option) I would suggest using a live cd to boot and get all your files off onto a USB drive then clean install.

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