package linux-image-3.5.0-17-generic (not installed) failed to install/upgrade: subprocess new pre-installation script returned error exit status 1

You may need to run the following:

sudo apt-get install -f
sudo apt-get clean
sudo apt-get update

Then re-install the package.

If that does not resolve your issue, please mark the bug as "Confirmed"

This is not an issue of broken package dependencies or similar but the problem that there is no non-PAE kernel in 12.10.

I've update my xubuntu installation to 12.10 and got the same problem. Nothing warned me before the upgrade that there will be no kernel suitable to my hardware (Pentium M 1.6 GHz).

Same issue here !! Really not professionnal to state kernel will be PAE by default, without a WARNING in the installer !!

I hope this isn't just a me-too, but I want to add that I'm amazed that I somehow lived through both 12.04 (and the 12.10 upgrade process) completely oblivious to the fact that PAE had become 'temporarily requisite' for 12.04 at launch and now definitely requisite for 12.10 absent 'unsupported' hacks and workarounds.*

The upgrade process on a Dell Latitude D600 laptop (first-generation Pentium M, no PAE) did warn that my graphics were at risk for being unsupported (as prior versions have), but there's no equivalent check and warning for the 'CPU surprise.' Since Ubuntu does leave old kernels lying around in /boot, the upgraded system was still bootable with 3.2.0, but between the kernel issue and the fact that Unity still isn't satisfied with what GL features the radeon driver can offer with an ""ATI Radeon Mobility 9000 (M9) Lf (AGP)" (ChipID = 0x4c66)" - yet no longer falls back to unity-2d, despite it still being installed** - I decided to back out rather than fight.

For users bit by this scenario who want to 'downgrade' back to a known state, the following abuse of apt (as posted on the Ubuntu Wiki) works:

Replace /etc/apt/sources.list with the helpfully-saved sources.list.distUpgrade in the same directory;

Create the file /etc/apt/preferences containing the following:

Package: *
Pin: release a=precise
Pin-Priority: 1001

Then: apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade; wait, wait some more, and you'll be back to 12.04. (That this managed to result in circular dependencies for CUPS on my system, so printing may be dead until you resolve that by hand, but elsewise things are back to normal.)

*The 'official' workarounds aren't terribly bad if you're starting from a fresh install: Rely on xubuntu (XFCE) or lubuntu (LXDE), then install the "ubuntu-desktop" package if you want Unity alongside the lighter-weight desktops - but that sort of 'crossgrade' is a little more annoying on an installed system you'd just intended to update rather than modify. If you're determined, some minor adjustments to the above recipe should work.

However, it's unclear how long the 'lightweight' distributions will continue to offer non-PAE kernels if the main Ubuntu kernel team is tired of maintaining some of the security patches; if there's a 'position statement' from those distros re: how long support can be expected, please link!

**(The absence of unity-2d fallback is surely surmountable with editing of the GDM config; I just wasn't in the mood. I'm still somehow surprised that Unity demands more GL features than compiz.)

Sorry, per #3 [thanks vilbara, wish I'd actually read your comment first!], it looks like xubuntu and lubuntu were workarounds for the initial "PAE-free" release of 12.04, but have already inherited the PAE requirement from mainline Ubuntu for 12.10, so... the 'grace period' offered by those distributions has already expired.

[I'd be happy to live insecurely but cautiously without NX emulation - AFAIK it wasn't even introduced to Ubuntu until relatively recently, see bug #369978 - maintenance of the patch being claimed as one reason for going PAE-only - even if this required manual installation of a specific 'nopae-insecure' kernel with screaming warnings after the fact, but given the other limitations it seems unlikely that many of the 'hot new features' post-12.04LTS would be available on my hardware anyway.]

Does this mean that the kernel will never again support non-PAE CPUs? One of the great "selling features" of LINUX has always been that it would support very old hardware.

I am running XUbuntu 12.10 but with the old kernel (3.2.X). However, I cannot do any upgrades until the "Broken Packages" are fixed, namely the 3.5.0 kernel.

What is the recommended solution (other than throwing away my perfectly good eeePC)?

Is there another distribution that would be more suited to non-PAE CPUs that will be supported for years to come?

Thanks for any advice?

@alpha1: I'm just another vaguely-confused "end user" like you; as far as I can tell there should be "no reason" for the kernel to *demand* PAE aside from Ubuntu apparently wanting to make sure all their users have W^X protections (given Ubuntu's popularity among distributions, that's a fair point, but only the subset of users with PAE-less hardware would be vulnerable if they simply gave up on the apparently annoying-to-maintain emulation patch) ... and guarantee that people with >4GB running 32-bit can see all their RAM (the main reason PAE exists).

As far as I can tell the 'official' solution is to hang back with 12.04 LTS and see what happens when the 'LTS' runs out. I don't think many other distributions have made the same decision yet (some people have pointed back to 'plain old Debian', for instance) and there's always the "fun" options of customizing your own kernel or trusting someone's unofficial build - so if you want to stick with 12.10, check around the forums for links to PPAs.

Affects me as well. I'd performed upgrade on my Thinkpad R50e.
I didn't read news about kernel devs stopping non pae support, and simply upgraded.
I really would expect from the installer to inform me about the issue before installation actually done
or even prevent me form installing 12.10.

[Expired for linux (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Bug #1066294 was marked expired on 28Dec2012 but is still present in Feb 2013 so has not been actioned and needs re-opening.
Before any upgrading software makes changes it needs to test that the hardware meets its requirements (no CPU PAE bit in this case) and if not show the problem in plain language and stop the upgrade.
Ubuntu 12.10 needs CPU PAE bit and Win8 will only run on processors which support PAE and NX and SSE2. So Ubuntu is going down the Windows slippery path encouraging usable PCs (even those with decent performance and those with up to 4 GB RAM) to be junked.
Ubuntu must continue to be better than Windows so should adapt to non-PAE PCs without having to be selective about kernels or worry if an upgrade will break after the upgrade.

Narrative: Xubuntu 12.04 was upgraded to 12.10. The new upgrade ran but we soon got broken package dependencies problems that could not be fixed (e.g. as suggested by the right honourable jsalisbury in Bug #1066294 above) and this led to the discovery that the CPU PAE bit was needed for 12.10.

Affects Xubuntu 12.10, Lubuntu 12.10, Ubuntu 12.10 and Peppermint 4 upgrade paths.

add Kubuntu to the list. And I agree with #11, ubuntu tries too much to be like windows for some years now, on the desktop side :(

Forcing people to get rid of "old" hardware like this, is a step in the playground of programmed waste of resources and certainly not a green behaviour.