[Leaplist] Latest Ubuntu version 8.10

[Bryan J. Smith]

Hank Lambert <hank at hanklambert.com> wrote:
> I have a friend of mine who was running 8.04 on an
> e-machine laptop, and he just upgraded to 8.10. His
> comment was that the upgrade was amazing. He had a
> lot of problems with 7.10. With 8.04, he got wireless
> and sound working, but still couldn't get compiz
> working. He said that 8.10 was flawless, and everything
> now works including compiz.<br>

Sounds like a kernel and X.org release with newer ATI 600
(possibly 700) series chipset support.  That would explain
both the audio and video improvements.

From: Danny W. Burdick <burdick at digital.net>
> I loaded the new kubuntu 8.10 it sux really
> bad.....they've totally hosed kde on that one...
> was so bad....went and downloaded ubuntu 8.10 and thought
> about installing it and then
> loading kde (the old one) but instead used the new debian
> 5rc1 installer and loaded up lenny
> wow how nice....if ya got the time and skills....

What did your logs say after the Kubuntu upgrade?

Ram K. Singh <rksingh54 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> For no apparent reason I like Debian and would have loved to
> install Lenny, but no skill and all the time that I might
> need.

If you already have something that works, why upgrade?
Wait until your release is up for end of support/updates
to consider an upgrade.

Derek Konigsberg <octo at logicprobe.org> wrote:
> I just got an HP Compaq 8510w laptop, and tried installing
> Kubuntu 8.10 on it.  At first it seemed woefully unpolished
> (have Kubuntu 8.04 on my desktop, and no problems there). 
> But now, apparently due to the classic Linux "kernel of
> the week" game, 8.10 can't run for very long on
> this laptop without randomly freezing up.  I guess I'll
> just have to wait until the next kernel update.  (others
> have noticed this problem on my laptop model as well)

What are your logs giving you?  Or sar?  Have you considered
submitting a kdump?  Or just doing a quick profile of one so
you know what is bringing it down?

BTW, I agree on the "kernel of the week" game.  I had one
Fedora kernel update that just totally would not boot, even
after re-creating the initrd.  Comparisons showed the Fedora
mechanisms created it correctly, the kernel just took issue
with the ICH9 on my notebook for some reason never seen before.
The very next update had no issues whatsoever.

The Red Hat kernel team (who virtually does all of the Fedora
kernel releases, wi

Derek Konigsberg <octo at logicprobe.org> wrote:
> Until then, MS Vista 64-bit has been pretty much flawless,
> which I can live with because most of what I'm using
> this laptop for requires Windows.

I can_not_ say the same.  Vista 64-bit has had some issues,
including _worse_ support of my Intel 5100AGN than Fedora
(both 32-bit and 64-bit).  Granted, I have a Best Buy "special"
(literally) Gateway P-7811FX, and they don't even release
Vista 64-bit fixes (I have to boot XP/Vista 32-bit, which
did _not_ come with the unit), so I wasn't expecting much.
But it's rather pathetic how things do not work (let alone
before I even address SP1 for Word 2007).

Richard F. Ostrow Jr. <rich at warfaresdl.com> wrote:
> Not likely... usually kernel problems are not due to kernel
> options, but due to bugs introduced in the new kernel. The
> way to solve kernel problems is to either go forward or
> backwards in the kernel version.

Agreed.  I've been very disappointed with this.  And people
wonder why Novell and Red Hat fix themselves at a release and
backport?  ;)

Richard F. Ostrow Jr. <rich at warfaresdl.com> wrote:
> Impossible - apps don't freeze the system

However, I have seen some applications either:  
A)  Freeze input in the GUI framework (poorly written)
B)  Execute a (typically video) driver, which freezes
    the system.

Richard F. Ostrow Jr. <rich at warfaresdl.com> wrote:
> Not likely, unless it were to turn the CPU frequency down
> to 0 for whatever reason.

Actually, the lack of driver support for power-down is a
very common issue.  I see this regularly with Intel products,
which _lack_ such support for various notebooks.

It's one of the reasons I still _avoid_ Intel in notebooks,
because their Linux drivers often _lack_ various support.
Even my corporate issued, IBM Thinkpad 60 notebook has issues
with Suspend (but hibernate works because it actually powers
down the unit).

Richard F. Ostrow Jr. <rich at warfaresdl.com> wrote:
> Might help determine if it's a stress-related issue,
> but it won't have anything to do with any given application.

Can't hurt to test.  My Gateway P-7811FX clearly overheats
if I don't "prop up the unit" to cool the GeForce 9800M GTS.
I sure wish they'd document this "know design flaw."

Richard F. Ostrow Jr. <rich at warfaresdl.com> wrote:
> ... or anything else with a different kernel version.
> Better yet, find a kernel version that is reported as
> working with your laptop model, and possibly a fine-tuned
> kernel for your laptop. These are common.

The vendor's bug tracking is typically the "first'n best"
resource for verification (if not resolution as well).

Richard F. Ostrow Jr. <rich at warfaresdl.com> wrote:
> On another note, I've found that NFS doesn't work
> properly under 2.6.25-r7 on some machines... it will
> cause the filesystem to lock up wherever NFS
> is involved at random points. Forces you to hit your power
> or reset button to recover (normal shutdown not possible
> due to lack of timeouts and recovery mechanisms). The
> machine I've noted this on was an nForce 750i chipset.

<bias warning=on>
I have had _major_ customers utterly _disregard_ Ubuntu
because of their constant issues with both NFS client and
server.  Even to very "Linux modified/friendly" NetApp filers.
</bias warning>

Richard F. Ostrow Jr. <rich at warfaresdl.com> wrote:
> The NFS server was a FreeBSD 7.2 machine, the client being
> described above. TCP packets were used instead of UDP to
> eliminate the possibility of dropped packets.

Actually, NFS/XDR over TCP can be "immature" in Linux.

-- 
Bryan J Smith          Professional, Technical Annoyance
b.j.smith at ieee.org    http://www.linkedin.com/in/bjsmith
--------------------------------------------------------
I don't have a "favorite Linux distro."  I use, develop
and support community efforts, often built around Linux.
Technology and solutions are my focus, not dragging in
assumptions, marketing and other concepts which dominate
non-community developed software, which I left long ago.



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