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First, I hope that this is not a duplicate, because I found my question quite strange and unique, and I don't have any idea with it.
These days I heard of the new Ubuntu release, version 13.10 and I am quite excited. I have been stuck in 12.04 for such a long time and it's time for a good upgrade. So...I ran update-manager -d and tried to go up to 12.10. (I decided to go up one by one)
It took a very long time to download all the required kernel and packages...and soon installing...and some questions asking me if I want to replace the old config files. I did some tweaking with that system before (changing startup applications, TMPFS, zram-enabler, etc) and I thought that it will cause a real crash if I keep these config files. So, I replaced all of them but it goes too slow and it's time I've to go to school. I asked my grandfather if he could help me to click all the 'Replace' buttons for me and shut down the computer after the upgrade finished.
When I was back from school, he told me that he accidentally clicked 'Keep' for the last popup box, and my computer can't function now. The grub menu is still there (made it appear by using the SHIFT key trick), and the splash screen is still visible, and I hope that the login screen is still there, or at least the tty so that I can still do a rescue, but nothing worked. CTRL+ALT+F1 does nothing, and I am sure that the monitor is still functioning.
So what can I do now?

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In a case like this, you probably don't want to invest too much time in troubleshooting the problem and after that doing the entire chain of upgrades from Ubuntu 12.04 to Ubuntu 13.10. Considering that a fresh install only takes about a half hour, I recommend that you backup all your personal data, using an Ubuntu live CD/DVD/USB if necessary, and then do a fresh install of Ubuntu 13.10.

Many things have changed from Ubuntu 12.04 to Ubuntu 13.10, such as the way to access Software Sources and Additional Drivers from the desktop, and doing a fresh install will also prevent possible problems from being introduced somewhere in the chain of upgrades from Ubuntu 12.04 to Ubuntu 13.10.

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  • Ok thanks for your suggestion. I shouldn't waste to much time on this. Now I did a fresh install and it worked quite well!
    – user27731
    Oct 18, 2013 at 12:03
  • Canoncial and Ubuntu developers is correct: Keeping these configuration files will cause your system unbootable.
    – Eofla
    May 31, 2016 at 16:07
  • It's much easier to start off on the right foot.
    – karel
    May 31, 2016 at 16:14

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