tl;dr: using ubuntu recovery mode on a framework laptop to recover from an “oh no! something has gone wrong” error

I recently had a scary situation where after running sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade, my framework laptop would fail to boot completely and would show this screen:

I freaked out a bit (naturally) and was worried I might have lost data. It was also at this time that I remembered I was not recently backed up, which made me even more stressed.

At that point I looked the error and tried to parse any documentation that might help. Not from my laptop, of course, but from a phone. I wasn’t able to make much progress, but I did land on this page:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RecoveryMode

With the help of a fellow recursor, we were able to enter recovery mode, albeit not as the above docs suggested.

entering ubuntu recovery mode on a framework laptop

1. shutdown completely

2. boot up and watch for the framework splash

3. immediately upon seeing the framework splash, tap the esc key once

   if you press it more than once, you’ll end up at the grub recovery console instead, which is a different kind of recovery

4. select the latest version of ubuntu that includes the phrase recovery mode from the menu and press enter.