I got the Ubuntu error in update manager “Error failed to fork pty” when I upgraded my laptop from Ubuntu 8.04 to 9.04 yesterday. That was quite annoying for 2 reasons, first because the bug, whatever it is, doesn’t allow you to open a terminal window either. You get an additional error “cannot launch a child process”. So I did a quick search of the Interwebs, and low and behold – the fix is pretty easy if you know what to do. You have to edit the fstab (filesystem tab file) as root, and guess what – because of the bug, you can’t use terminal!
So here is your fix, this is all you have to do. You can run a command in Ubuntu by hitting the keys “Alt+F2” at the same time.
Once the window comes up – enter this command and click ok:
devpts /dev/pts devpts (rw,noexec,nosuid,gid=5,mode=620)
This hit “Alt+F2” one last time and run this command:
sudo mount -a
Then you should be good, no reboot required!
