[clue-tech] Ubuntu lock-up problems

[Michael J. Hammel]

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.  

I had a weird network problem the other day at the library.  I got
connected to the wireless, but whenever I tried to login via their web
portal I got a blank "login.pl".  Obviously a server side problem
because later I was able to get that page without changing anything on
my end.  Unfortunately, it only lasted for a few moments and I never got
logged in.  

Related to that, this whole process was to give a talk on WordPress at
the Open Source Meetup here in the Springs.  When I tried to start up
OpenOffice 3 to load the presentation, it hung.  When I shut off the
unauthorized network connection (service network stop) OpenOffice
started working.  What the $%^$&^#$ is OpenOffice doing at startup that
requires it to want to go out on the network!?!?

-- 
Michael J. Hammel                               
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org / http://www.graphics-muse.org
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