Well... I wish I'd known where to look before removing everything from my system. Submitting this bug report allowed me to see VarLogDistupgradeMainlog.txt which contained this choice tidbit.
2014-11-02 17:22:10,545 DEBUG blacklist expr '^postgresql-.*[0-9]\.[0-9].*' matches 'postgresql-plperl-9.3' 2014-11-02 17:22:10,545 DEBUG The package 'postgresql-plperl-9.3' is marked for removal but it's in the removal blacklist 2014-11-02 17:22:10,559 ERROR Dist-upgrade failed: 'The package 'postgresql-plperl-9.3' is marked for removal but it is in the removal blacklist.' Manually removing postgresql-plperl-9.3 appears to be allowing the release upgrade to proceed. ** Also affects: postgresql-9.3 (Ubuntu) Importance: Undecided Status: New ** No longer affects: postgresql-9.3 (Ubuntu) -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1388639 Title: do-release-upgrade to 14.10 fails To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+bug/1388639/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs