[clue-tech] Ubuntu lock-up problems

[Dennis J Perkins]

On Sat, 2009-01-31 at 10:49 -0700, Michael J. Hammel wrote:
> On Sat, 2009-01-31 at 10:31 -0700, Dennis J Perkins wrote:
> > I'm having lockup problems with Ubuntu and Kubuntu.  I'm giving my old
> > laptop to a friend and I decided to install Kubuntu for her.  It locks
> > up frequently.  Sometimes it locks up almost immediately.  Sometimes it
> > seems as if being idle makes it lock up too.  I tried Ubuntu instead and
> > it has the same problems.
> > Disabling effects seems to help some.  I installed the ATI driver to see
> > if that would help and it does not.
> 
> Boot into single user mode and change the video driver to VGA.  Then try
> it for awhile.  This should remove all the special acceleration features
> and whizbang effects.  If this works, then the problem is likely related
> to the video drivers (xorg and/or kernel).  You might try disabling DRI
> to see if that helps, but that's gonna slow the desktop down a bit.
> 
> > The other problem is one I saw at the Installfest last week.  Ubuntu
> > will not connect to the wireless, but it does see the WAP.  It simply
> > refuses to connect.  It has the same drivers I used for LFS.
> 
> If it sees it but doesn't connect then it sounds like a configuration
> problem.  But I'm not the network guru 'round these parts.  
> 

The problem appears to be somewhere in X.  The Arch Linux boot disk,
which does not use X, never locked up.  The Ubuntu install disks for
8.04 and 8.10 lock up, using either Ubuntu or Kubuntu.  Fedora 10 locks
up on the splash screen.

I cannot switch Kubuntu, which is installed, to VGA.  I found that there
is no VGA driver.  I also tried VESA, and there is a VESA driver, but it
won't run.  The fglrx driver fails too.  Only the radeon driver wants to
run.

I tried adding noacpi to the kernel options, but that doesn't help.

I added NoDRI to xorg.conf, and that doesn't matter either.