I believe this can be classified as resolved; at least for the open source community :)
The proprietary NVIDIA driver, changes the script of certain files that were remodified to their new defaults, by the update process; but only slightly. It appears that for some unexplained (as of yet) reason, this faulting of ownership of files, leads to the non Ubuntu standard (but still open source in nature) program - VirtualBox - to hang the /etc/group file and destroy it. But ONLY if VirtualBox is running during the update process! At least with my particular setup. I should also note here that the NVIDIA driver is the latest experimental release; and that at time of download for use with my system, my card was not listed as being supported...(it works; but is not supported)... When prompted during update (with VirtualBox running), if I want to keep my modified /etc/X11/xorg.conf file or update to the new settings is when things hung for me. Just error and continue install of the rest of the updates, no chance to accept or deny changing of xorg.conf file (VirtualBox crashes at this point as well). If not running VirtualBox during update, everything goes smooth as butter; well, except having to restart after updates complete, and reinstall the skipped xorg update caused by the modifications by the NVIDIA driver install! So this can probably be summed up as a PEBKAC bug. (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair) - In that DO NOT run other applications while installing 200+ updates! And - DO NOT buy proprietary coded video cards! LOL If NVIDIA had open source drivers, I would more than likely never had this problem; as they would not have caused such a ruckus during update times! The previous errors mentioned in my original posting were from the NVIDIA driver as well, but before this, they always worked themselves out... upon restart. Again, Thank You BRIAN - YOU ROCK! I wrote a nice posting on my Blog about my experience as well! If I should not post my blog link here, please be kind and edit it out and post to me that it is not allowed. I do not want to get kicked off, as I would love to stick around and take my knowledge of Linux to the GURU- elevation! blog url: http://www.foxholeunderground.com Thanks; Jeremy Riley -- Feisty Fawn update loses access to root admin privelages https://launchpad.net/bugs/92428 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs