Ubuntu 9.04 Released

[[GSV]Lemming]

Similar to theheyes I am getting lockups on a system that is rock solid under 8.04. Most of the time it is within a few mins of starting, usually when I am negotiating menus.

Its too damned frustrating to live with, I want stability so its back to 8.04 for me

 

[theheyes]

I'm back on Jaunty at the minute because I couldn't get 8.04 working properly with my wireless keyboard and mouse during startup. I've lost count how many reinstalls I've done this week.

Basically I'm having a huge problem with waking up from suspend and hibernation with Linux in general. It just doesn't work - when I try to wake from suspend I just get a black screen and no response to input, similarly if I try to wake from hibernation it won't even boot. I've even tried Fedora 10 and have the same problem! It's so frustrating and I can't see to find a definitive answer anywhere - lots of threads on various forums but no real answers.

Really annoying because when its running its great, but I can't live without suspend/hibernate.

Anyone shed any light on it?

 

[brummie]

Anyone shed any light on it?

Without any info?

 

[BillytheImpaler]

In my experience suspend/hibernate is highly dependent on the kernel modules running on the system. Specifically this means the proprietary nVidia or ATi video drivers. On all my systems if I'm using a crappy FOSS driver suspend and hibernate work spectacularly well. As soon as I turn on the proprietary drivers it mucks it up. My laptops with integrated Intel graphics seem to all work pretty well on the included drivers, presumably they are FOSS or at least binary blobs that Just Work.

Does this shed any light?

Maybe your problems are related to the new version of Xorg in 9.04. The existing proprietary drivers don't support it. It was the same way when 8.10 was released. :/

It seems like Ubuntu represents a significant-enough percentage of the Linux desktop market that nVidia and ATi should play along with it, especially given its dependable release cycle. Furthermore Canonical should be thinking about these types of external dependencies come release time. They can't tackle Bug No. 1 if every six months the graphics subsystem for the newest release is broken for three months.

At a deeper level, methinks the three big graphics vendors should really become involved in Xorg, guiding its development with devs and a little money to give their Linux desktop and workstation customers a better user experience. It brings to mind the whole circular dependency notion of Linux having relatively low desktop adoption due, in part, to poor support for some hardware. However, the hardware manufacturers who write the secret drivers for the aforementioned hardware won't give the Linux market serious attention because it has low desktop adoption.

We could all use LTS releases which stay around long enough to become stable and mature, but the fast-changing Linux marketplace really puts an emphasis on having the newest, coolest stuff.

I pray to all things holy that Larrabee brings about a new graphics paradigm that will quickly and easily sweep away all this proprietary, poorly documented, NDA-bound hogwash. Though x86 is not Free, it is at least well-enough understood that FLOSS developers could kick some serious butt with it right out of the gate.

 

[yashiro]

You want the moon on a stick, Billy.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Yeah, and the stick better not be too damned long this time!

 

[eXor]

We could all use LTS releases which stay around long enough to become stable and mature

Translation.... Debian.

I don't get the obsession with constant OS upgrades. Fair enough if some hardware is not working, or some app won't run, or support has ended.

If it ain't broke...

 

[theheyes]

In my experience suspend/hibernate is highly dependent on the kernel modules running on the system. Specifically this means the proprietary nVidia or ATi video drivers. On all my systems if I'm using a crappy FOSS driver suspend and hibernate work spectacularly well. As soon as I turn on the proprietary drivers it mucks it up. My laptops with integrated Intel graphics seem to all work pretty well on the included drivers, presumably they are FOSS or at least binary blobs that Just Work.

Does this shed any light?

Maybe your problems are related to the new version of Xorg in 9.04. The existing proprietary drivers don't support it. It was the same way when 8.10 was released. :/

Thanks for this. It's helpful to know I'm not alone and that it's part of a larger cycle of problems - something not obvious to new users. Yes, between the ubuntu fourms, fedora forums and linuxquestions.org people were fingering xorg/proprietary drivers and dodgy network drivers. I've tried it with and without the nvidia driver and it didn't seem to make a difference in regards to the suspend issue. I've re-enabled the driver because I found without it playing video was a bit dodgy, particularly with flash (bbc iplayer).

I'd be more than happy to stick to an LTS in exchange for reliability. I have a question about that actually - the 8.10 repositories, perhaps obviously, were listing out-of-date versions of software - for example OpenOffice 2.4. What do people usually do in this situtation? Do they point to repositories for the newer releases? Or do they go and find the packages themselves on the internet to get the newer versions?

To be honest, I'm still impressed by how many things "just worked" out of the box considering the fractional market share. I think thats what makes it all the more frustrating - if the basic suspend/hibernate function worked it would be there.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

Most poeple, I suppose, stick with the supported versions that came with 8.10 and will continue to get patches for years. If you want to newer versions desperately enough to go about it manually you can go on GetDeb or, in this case, the PPA for OO.o 3.0.

If you want to upgrade to a newer version just to have the new shininess, rather than for want to a feature you need I'd just ignore the urge and carry on. The security and stability should be marginally better that way.

 

[theheyes]

As long as they continue to get security patches then that's fine. Cheers.

 

[BillytheImpaler]

This somehow slipped my mind when I posted earlier.

8.10 is not the LTS release, 8.04 is (and 6.06 which is still supported for the server install, not that it's relevant here). I thought I should point out my error so as not to confuse you or anybody else reading along.

 

[theheyes]

I made the same mistake - I meant 8.04 too.