Ubuntu 9.04 to 9.10 upgrade and nvidia problems, etc

So since it is very easy to upgrade to 9.10 from 9.04, I downloaded Kubuntu 9.10 in the kubuntu-9.10-alternate-amd64.iso format for a Intel Core2 64-bit system and ran the install.

Predictably, ran into problems after the install, here are the issues, and their fixes.

Started with 9.04 install, more details in this entry: Ubuntu Install. One problem existed in 9.04 - there was no audio for the HDA Nvidia device, even after trying many installs/uninstalls and different drivers. Magically, the audio problem was fixed with the 9.10 upgrade! So, it was all worth it.

Here are the rough steps for the upgrade and fixing issues:

Run apt-get update and upgrade to bring all packages to latest version on current version of Ubuntu. Shut down all applications, including any kvm virtual machines running on the host.

Download kubuntu-9.10-alternate-amd64.iso. Mount it locally and the run the installer from a shell:
sudo mount -o loop .../path-to/kubuntu-9.10-alternate-i386.iso /media/cdrom0
kdesudo "sh /media/cdrom0/cdromupgrade"

Upgrade was smooth, selected option to remove unused packages, and in around 15 minutes, it was done. Even kvm virtual machines started up with no problems.

Since the upgrade was done from a locally mounted CD image that won't be available later, edited the /etc/apt/sources.list file, and commented out the cdrom line.

On reboot - the first problem - no kdm - no graphical login prompt, no X server. The nvidia drivers did not install, and manually trying to install nvidiia-glx-173, 180, failed.
With some searching, found that medibuntu was disabled, so ran the command to add it to apt's source list:
sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/`lsb_release -cs`.list --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list && sudo apt-get -q update && sudo apt-get --yes -q --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get -q update

Later on, discovered that nvidia-glx-190 was available - so ran this:
sudo apt-get install nvidia-190-modaliases nvidia-glx-190 nvidia-settings
That worked without errors! And then a reboot resulted in X server starting up.

Many other programs behaved strangely - in all cases, uninstalling the program/package, and reinstalling it fixed it.

For example: screen kept complaining about needing 775 permission for /var/run/screen on every reboot, even after manually fixing the permissions. Uninstall/reinstall fixed the problem.

avidemux was not playing mpeg files correctly, and audio was garbled. Uninstalled it, re-installed it from the 9.10 Karmic repositories, which had a newer version, and now it works fine.

Firefox flashblock add-on had problems - showed button, clicking did nothing - no video playback.
Uninstalled it in firefox, and reinstalled it - version - 1.5.11.2 using Get Add-Ons in firefox 3.0.15. This too did not fix it, then installed older 1.5.10, still no luck, then ran the update from 1.5.10, which ended up getting 1.5.11.2 again, but this time, after restarts, it started working for a while - then stopped working. Standard sites, like youtube and nytimes do not work with flashblock. Oh well. This is probably a flashblock add-on issue, nothing to do with Ubuntu or Firefox.